UC-NRLF 


SB    372 


bp  frSlooUrotu  Wilson 


CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT.     A  Study  in 
American  Politics.     i6mo,  #1.25. 

MERE    LITERATURE,  and  Other  Essays,     izmo, 
$1.50. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


MERE   LITERATURE 


AND   OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 


WOODROW  x WILSON 


BOSTON   AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON     MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

(ft&e  ftiter-sibe  press,  Cambribge 


Copyright,  1896, 
BY  WOODROW  WILSON 

All  rights  reserved. 


PS 


TO 

STOCKTON  AXSON 

BY    EVEKY   GIFT   OF   MIND   A    CRITIC 

AND   LOVER   OF   LETTERS 

BY   EVERY    GIFT   OF   HEART   A   FRIEND 

THIS    LITTLE    VOLUME 

IS  AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


247137 


CONTENTS. 

PAGK 

I.  MERE  LITERATURE 1 

II.  THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF 28 

III.  ON  AN  AUTHOR'S  CHOICE  OF  COMPANY  ...  50 

IV.  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN 69 

V.  THE  INTERPRETER  OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY       .        .  104 

VI.  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER       ....  161 

VII.  A  CALENDAR  OF  GREAT  AMERICANS      .        .        .  187 

VIII.  THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  .        .        .  213 


*#*  All  but  one  of  the  essays  brought  together  in  this  volume 
have  already  been  printed,  either  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  the 
Century  Magazine,  or  the  Forum.  The  essay  on  Burke  appears 
here  for  the  first  time  in  print. 


MERE  LITERATURE. 


I. 

"MERE     LITERATURE." 

A  SINGULAR  phrase  this,  "  mere  literature,"  — 
the  irreverent  invention  of  a  scientific  age.  Litera 
ture  we  know,  but  "  mere  "  literature  ?  We  are 
not  to  read  it  as  if  it  meant  sheer  literature,  litera 
ture  in  the  essence,  stripped  of  all  accidental  or 
ephemeral  elements,  and  left  with  nothing  but  its 
immortal  charm  and  power.  "  I^iere  literature"  is 
a  serious  sneer,  conceived  in  all  honestv_  _by_Jbhe 
scientific  mind,  which  despises  things  that  do  .not 
fall  within  the  categories  of  demonstrable  know 
ledge.  It  means  nothing  but  literature*  as  who 
should  say,  "mere  talk,"  "mere  fabrication," 
"mere  pastime."  The  scientist,  with  his  head 
comfortably  and  excusably  full  of  knowable  things, 
takes  nothing  seriously  and  with  his  hat  off,  except 
human  knowledge.  The  creations  of  the_human 
spirit  are,  from  his  point  of  .view,  incalculable 
vagaries,  irresponsible  phenomena,  to  be  regarded 


2  '  MERE  LITERATURE. 

only_as  playT  and,  for  the  mind's  good,  only  as 
recreation,  —  to  be  used  to  while  away  the  tedium 
of  a  railway  journey,  or  to  amuse  a  period  of  rest 
or  convalescence  ;  mere .byplay,  mere  make-believe. 
And  so  very  whimsical  things  sometimes  happen, 
because  of  this  scientific  and  positivist  spirit  of  the 
age,  when  the  study  of  the  literature  of  any  lan 
guage  is  made  part  of  the  curriculum  of  our  col 
leges.  The  more  delicate  and  subtle  purposes  of 
the  study  are  put  quite  out  of  countenance,  and 
literature  is  commanded  to  assume  the  phrases  and 
the  methods  of  science.  It  would  be  very  painful 
if  it  should  turn  out  that  schools  and  universities 
were  agencies  of  Philistinism ;  but  there  are  some 
things  which  should  prepare  us  for  such  a  discov 
ery.  Our  present  plans  for  teaching  everybody 
involve  certain  unpleasant  things  quite  inevitably. 
It  is  obvious  that  you  cannot  have  universal  educa- 
tion"wlthout  restricting  your  teaching  to  such  things 
as  can  be  universally  understood.  It  is  plain  that 
you  cannot  impart  "  university  methods  "  to  thou 
sands,  or  create  "  investigators "  by  the  score, 
unless  you  confine  your  university  education  to 
matters  which  dull  men  can  investigate,  your  lab 
oratory  training  to  tasks  which  merejjloddinj^dili- 
gence  and  submissive  patience  can  compass.  Yet, 
if  you  do  so  limit  and  constrain  what  you  teach, 


MEEE  LITEEATUEE.  3 

you  thrust  taste  and  insight  and  delicacy  of  per 
ception  out  of  the  schools,  exalt  the_obvious  and 
the  merely  useful  above  the  things  which  are  only 
imaginatively  or  spiritually  conceived,  make  educa 
tion  an  affair  of  tasting  and  handling  and  smelling, 
and  so  create  Philistia,  that  country  in  which  they 
speak  of  "mere  literature."  I  suppose  that  in 
Nirvana  one  would  speak  in  like  wise  of  "mere 
life." 

The  fear,  at  any  rate,  that  such  things  may  hap 
pen  cannot  fail  to  set  us  anxiously  pondering  cer 
tain  questions  about  the  systematic  teaching  of 
literature  in  our  schools  and  colleges.  How  are  we 
to  impart  classical  writings  to  the  children  of  the 
general  public  ?  "  Beshrew  the  general  public  !  " 
cries  Mr.  Birrell.  "  What  in  the  name  of  the 
Bodleian  has  the  general  public  got  to  do  with 
literature?"  Unfortunately,  it  has  a  great  deal  to 
do  with  it ;  for  are  we  not  complacently  forcing  the 
general  public  into  our  universities,  and  are  we  not 
arranging  that  all  its  sons  shall  be  instructed  how 
they  may  themselves  master  and  teach  our  litera 
ture  ?  You  have  nowadays,  it  is  believed,  only  to 
heed  the  suggestions  of  pedagogics  in  order  to  know 
how  to  impart  Burke  or  Browning,  Dryden  or  Swift. 
There  are  certain  practical  difficulties,  indeed  ;  but 
there  are  ways  of  overcoming  them.  You  must 


4  MERE  LITERATURE. 

have  strength  if  you  would  handle  with  real  mas 
tery  the  firm  fibre  of  these  men ;  you  must  have  a 
heart,  moreover,  to  feel  their  warmth,  an  eye  to  see 
what  they  see,  an  imagination  to  keep  them  com 
pany,  a  pulse  to  experience  their  delights.  But  if 
you  have  none  of  these  things,  you  may  make  shift 
to  do  without  them.  You  may  count  the  words 
they  use,  instead,  note  the  changes  of  phrase  they 
make  in  successive  revisions,  put  their  rhythm  into 
a  scale  of  feet,  run  their  allusions  —  particularly 
their  female  allusions  —  to  cover,  detect  them  in 
their  previous  reading.  Or,  if  none  of  these  things 
please  you,  or  you  find  the  big  authors  difficult 
or  dull,  you  may  drag  to  light  all  the  minor  writers 
of  their  time,  who  are  easy  to  understand.  By  set 
ting  an  example  in  such  methods  you  render  great 
services  in  certain  directions.  You  make  the  higher 
degreejLpJ pur  universities  available  for  the  large 
number  of  respectable  men  who  can  count,  and 
measure,  and  search  diligently  ;  and  that  may  prove 
no_small  matter.  You  divert  attention  from  thought, 
which  is  not  always  easy  to  get  at,  and  fix  attention 
upon  language,  as  upon  a  curious  mechanism,  which 
can  be  perceived  with  the  bodily  eye,  and  which  is 
worthy  to  be.  studied  for  its  own  sake,  quite  apart 
from  anything  it  may  mean.  You  encourage  the 
examination  of  forroa^  grammatical  and  metrical, 


MERE  LITERATURE.  5 

which  can  be  quite  accurately  determined  and  quite 
exhaustively  catalogued.  You  bring  all  the  visible 
phenomena  of  writing  to  light  and  into  ordered 
system.  You  go  further,  and  show  how  to  make 
careful  literal  identification  of  stories  somewhere 
told  ill  and  without  art  with  the  same  stories  told 
over  again  by  the  masters,  well  and  with  the  trans 
figuring  effect  of  genius.  You  thus  broaden  the 
area  of  science;  for  you  rescue  the  concrete  phe 
nomena  of  the  expression  of  thought  —  the  neces 
sary  syllabification  which  accompanies  it,  the  inev 
itable  juxtaposition,  of  words,  the  constant  use  of 
particles,  the  habitual  display  of  roots,  the  invet 
erate  repetition  of  names,  the  recurrent  employment 
of  meanings  heard  or  read  —  from  their  confusion 
with  the  otherwise  unclassifiable  manifestations  of 
what  had  hitherto  been  accepted,  without  critical 
examination,  under  the  lump  term  "literature?" 
simply  for  the  pleasure  and  spiritual  edification  to 
be  got  from  it. 

An  instructive  differentiation  ensues.  In  con 
trast  with  the  orderly  phenomena  of  speech  and 
writing,  which  are  amenable  to  scientific  processes 
of  examination  and  classification,  and  which  take 
rank  with  the  orderly  successions  of  change  in 
nature,  we  have  what,  for  want  of  a  more  exact 
term,  we  call  "  mere  literature,"  —  the  literature 


6  MERE  LITERATURE. 

which  is  not  an  expression  of  form,  but  an  expres 
sion  of  spirit.  This  is  a  fugitive  and  troublesome 
thing,  and  perhaps  does  not  belong  in  well-con 
ceived  plans  of  universal  instruction  ;  for  it  offers 
many  embarrassments  to  pedagogic  method.  _It 
escapes  all  scientific  categories.  It  is  not  pervious 
to  research.  It  is  too  wayward  to  be  brought  under 
the  discipline  of  exposition.  It  is  an  attribute  of 
so  "many  different  substances  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  that  the  consistent  scientific  man  must  needs 
put  it  forth  from  his  company,  as  without  respon 
sible  connections.  By_"mere  literature"  he  means 
mere  evanescent  color,  wanton  trick  of  phrase,  per 
verse  departures  from  categorical  statement,— 
something  all  personal  equation,  such  -stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  of. 

We  must  not  all,  however,  be  impatient  of  this 
truant  child  of  fancy.  When  the  schools  cast  her 
out,  she  will  stand  in  need  of  friendly  succor,  and 
we  must  train  our  spirits  for  the  function.  We 
must  be  free-hearted  in  order  to  make  her 
happy,  for  she  will  accept  entertainment  from  no 
sober,  prudent  'fellow  who  shall  counsel  her  to  mend 
her  ways.  She  has  always  made  light  of  hardship, 
and  she  has  never  loved  or  obeyed  any,  save  those 
who  were  of  her  own  mind,  —  those  who  were  in 
dulgent  to  her  humors,  responsive  to  her  ways  of 


MERE  LITERATURE.  1 

thought,  attentive  to  her  whims,  content  with  her 
"  mere  "  charms^,  She  already  has  her  small  fol 
lowing  of  devotee^,  like  all  charming,  capricious 
mistresses.  There  are  some  still  who  think  that 
to  know  her  is  better  than  a  liberal  education., 

There  is  but  one  way  in  which  you  can  take 
mere  literature  as  an  education,  and  that  is  directly, 
at  first  hand.  Almost  any  media  except  her  own 
language  and  touch  and  tone  are  non-conducting. 
A  descriptive  catalogue  of  a  collection  of  paintings 
is  no  substitute  for  the  little  areas  of  color  and 
form  themselves.  You  do  not  want  to  hear  about 
a  beautiful  woman,  simply,  —  how  she  was  dressed, 
how  she  bore  herself,  how  the  fine  color  flowed 
sweetly  here  and  there  upon  her  cheeks,  how  her 
eyes  burned  and  melted,  how  her  voice  thrilled 
through  the  ears  of  those  about  her.  If  you  have 
ever  seen  a  woman,  these  things  but  tantalize  and 
hurt  you,  if  you  cannot  see  her.  You  want  to  be 
in  her  presence.  You  know  that  only  your  own 
eyes  can  give  you  direct  knowledge  of  her.  No 
thing  but  her  presence  contains  her  life.  'T  is 
the  same  with  the  authentic  products  of  literature. 
You  can  never  get  their  beauty  at  second  hand,  or 
feel  their  power  except  by  direct  contact  with  them. 

It  is  a  strange  and  occult  thing  how  this  quality 
of  «  mere  literature  "  enters  into  one  book,  and  is 


8  MERE  LITERATURE. 

absent  from  another  ;  but  no  man  who  has  once 
felt  it  can  mistake  it.  I  was  reading  the  other 
day  a  book  about  Canada.  It  is  written  in  what 
the  reviewers  have  pronounced  to  be  an  "  admira 
ble,  spirited  style."  By  this  I  take  them  to  mean 
that  it  is  grammatical,  orderly,  and  full  of  strong 
adjectives.  But  these  reviewers  would  have  known 
more  about  the  style  in  which  it  is  written  if  they 
had  noted  what  happens  on  page  84.  There  a 
quotation  from  Burke  occurs.  "There  is,"  says 
Burke,  "  but  one  healing,  catholic  principle  of 
toleration  which  ought  to  find  favor  in  this  house. 
It  is  wanted  not  only  in  our  colonies,  but  here.  The 
thirsty  earth  of  our  own  country  is  gasping  and 
gaping  and  crying  out  for  that  healing  shower  from 
heaven.  The  noble  lord  has  told  you  of  the  right 
of  those  people  by  treaty  ;  but  I  consider  the  right 
of  conquest  so  little,  and  the  right  of  human  nature 
so  much,  that  the  former  has  very  little  considera 
tion  with  me.  I  look  upon  the  people  of  Canada 
as  coming  by  the  dispensation  of  God  under  the 
British  government.  I  would  have  us  govern  it  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  all-wise  disposition  of 
Providence  would  govern  it.  We  know  he  suf 
fers  the  sun  to  shine  upon  the  righteous  and  the 
unrighteous  ;  and  we  ought  to  suffer  all  classes  to 
enjoy  equally  the  right  of  worshiping  God  accord- 


MERE  LITERATURE.  9 

ing  to  the  light  he  has  been  pleased  to  give  them." 
The  peculiarity  of  such  a  passage  as  that  is,  that  it 
needs  no  context.  Its  beauty  seems  almost  inde 
pendent  of  its  subject  matter.  It  comes  on  that 
eighty-fourth  page  like  a  burst  of  music  in  the 
midst  of  small  talk,  —  a  tone  of  sweet  harmony 
heard  amidst  a  rattle  of  phrases.  The  mild  noise 
was  unobjectionable  enough  until  the  music  came. 
There  is  a  breath  and  stir  of  life  in  those  sentences 
of  Burke's  which  is  to  be  perceived  in  nothing  else 
in  that  volume.  Your  pulses  catch  a  quicker 
movement  from  them,  and  are  stronger  on  their 
account. 

It  is  so  with  all  essential  literature.  It  has  a 
quality  to  move  you,  and  you  can  never  mistake  it, 
if  y^m  have  any  blood  in  you.  And  it  has  also  a 
power  to  instruct  you  which  is  as  effective  as  it  is 
subtle,  and  which  no  research  or  systematic  method 
can  ever  rival.  'T  is  a  sore  pity  if  that  power  can 
not  be  made  available  in  the  classroom.  It  is  not 
merely  that  it  quickens  your  thought  and  fills  your 
imagination  with  the  images  that  have  illuminated 
the  choicer  minds  of  the  race.  It  does  indeed  ex 
ercise  the  faculties  in  this  wise,  bringing  them  into 
the  best  atmosphere,  and  into  the  presence  of  the 
men  of  greatest  charm  and  force ;  but  it  does  a 
great  deal  more  than  that.  It  acquaints  the  mind, 


10  MERE  LITERATURE. 

by  direct  contact,  with  the  forces  which  really  gov- 
ern  and  modify  the  world  from  generation  to  gen- 
|~~~eration.  Ttuera  13  more  of  a  nation's  ^politics  tp^be 
got  out  of  its  poetry  than  out  of  all  its  systematic 
writers  upon  public  affairs  and  constitutions.  Epics 
are  better  mirrors  of  manners  than  chronicles ; 
dramas  oftentimes  let  you  into  the  secrets  of  stat 
utes  ;  orations  stirred  by  a  deep  energy  of  emotion 
or  resolution,  passionate  pamphlets  that  survive  their 
mission  because  of  the  direct  action  of  their  style 
along  permanent  lines  of  thought,  contain  more 
history  than  parliamentary  journals.  It  is  not 
knowledge  that  moves  the  world,  but  ideals,  con- 
viotions,  the  opinions  or  fancies  that  have  been  held 
pjr  followed ;  and  whoever  studies  humanity  ought 
to  study  it  alive,  practice  the  vivisection  of  reading 
literature,  and  acquaint  himself  with  something 
more  than  anatomies  which  are  no  longer  in  use  by 
spirits. 

There  are  some  words  of  Thibaut,  the  great 
jurist,  which  have  long  seemed  to  me  singularly 
penetrative  of  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  intellectual 
life.  "  I  told  him,"  he  says,  —  he  is  speaking  of 
an  interview  with  Niebuhr,  —  "I  told  him  that  I 
owed  my  gayety  and  vigor,  in  great  part,  to  my 
love  for  the  classics  of  all  ages,  even  those  outside 
the  domain  of  jurisprudence."  Not  only  the  gayety 


MERE  LITERATURE.  11 

and  vigor  of  his  hale  old  age,  surely,  but  also  his 
insight  into  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  laws  and 
institutions.  The  jurist  who  does  not  love  the 
classics  of  all  ages  is  like  a  post-mortem  doctor  pre 
siding  at  a  birth,  a  maker  of  manikins  prescribing 
for  a  disease  of  the  blood,  a  student  of  masks  set 
ting  up  for  a  connoisseur  in  smiles  and  kisses/  In 
narrating  history,  you  are  speaking  of  what  was 
done  by  men ;  in  discoursing  of  laws,  you  are  seek 
ing  to  show  what  courses  of  action,  and  what  man 
ner  of  dealing  with  one  another,  men  have  adopted. 
You  can  neither  tell  the  story  nor  conceive  the  law 
till  you  know  how  the  men  you  speak  of  regarded 
themselves  and  one  another  ;  and  I  know  of  no  way 
of  learning  this  but  by  reading  the  stories  they  have 
told  of  themselves,  the  songs  they  have  sung,  the 
heroic  adventures  they  have  applauded.  I  must 
know  what,  if  anything,  they  revered ;  I  must  hear 
their  sneers  and  gibes ;  must  learn  in  what  accents 
they  spoke  love  within  the  family  circle ;  with  what 
grace  they  obeyed  their  superiors  in  station ;  how 
they  conceived  it  politic  to  live,  and  wise  to  die ; 
how  they  esteemed  property,  and  what  they  deemed 
privilege ;  when  they  kept  holiday,  and  why ;  when 
they  were  prone  to  resist  oppression,  and  where 
fore,  —  I  must  see  things  with  their  eyes,  before  I 
can  comprehend  their  law  books.  Their  jural  re- 


12  MERE  LITERATURE. 

lationships  are  not  independent  of  their  way  of  liv 
ing,  and  their  way  of  thinking  is  the  mirror  of  their 
way  of  living. 

It  is  doubtless  due  to  the  scientific  spirit  of  the 
age  that  these  plain,  these  immemorial  truths  are 
in  danger  of  becoming  obscured.  Science,  under 
the  influence  of  the  conception  of  e volution  j^devotes 
itself  to  the  study  of  forms,  of  specific  differences, 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  same  principle  of  life 
manifests  itself  variously  under  the  compulsions  of 
changes  of  environment.  It  is  thus  that  it  has  be 
come  "  scientific  "  to  set  forth  the  manner  in  which 
man's  nature  submits  to  man's  circumstances ; 
scientific  to  disclose  morbid  moods,  and  the  con 
ditions  which  produce  them ;  scientific  to  regard 
many  not  as  the  centre  or  source  of  power,  but  as 
subject  to  power,  a  jegister  of  external  forces  in 
stead  of  an  originative  _soul, /and  character  as  a 
product  of  man's  circumstances  rather  thanjajsign 
of  man's  mastery  over  circumstance.  J  It  is  thus 
that  it  has  become  "scientific"  to  analyze  lan 
guage  as  itself  a  commanding  element  in  man's  life. 
The  history  of  word-roots,  their  modification  under 
the  influences  of  changes  wrought  in  the  vocal 
organs  by  habit  or  by  climate,  the  laws  of  phonetic 
change  to  which  they  are  obedient,  and  their  per 
sistence  under  all  disguises  of  dialect,  as  if  they 


MERE  LITERATURE.  13 

were  full  of  a  self-originated  life,  a  self-directed 
energy  of  influence,  is  united  with  the  study  of 
grammatical  forms  in  the  construction  of  scientific 
conceptions  of  the  evolution  and  uses  of  human 
speech.  The  impression  is  created  that  literature 
is  only  the  chosen  vessel  of  these  forms,  disclosing 
to  us  their  modification  in  use  and  structure  from 
age  to  age.  r  Such  vitality  as  the  masterpieces  of 
genius  possess  comes  to  seem  only  a  dramatization 
of  the  fortunes  of  words.  /  Great  writers  construct 
for  the  adventures  of  language  their  appropriate 
epics.  Or,  if  it  be  not  the  words  themselves  that 
are  scrutinized,  but  the  style  of  their  use,  that  style 
becomes,  instead  of  a  fine  essence  of  personality,  a 
matter  of  cadence  merely,  or  of  grammatical  and 
structural  relationships,  Science  is  the  study  of 
the  forces  of  the  world  of  matter,  the  adjustments, 
the  apparatus,  of  the  universe ;  and  the  scientific 
study  of  literature  has  likewise  become  a  study  of 
apparatus,  —  of  the  forms  in  which  men  utter 
thought,  and  the  forces  by  which  those  forms  have 
been  and  still  are  being  modified,  rather  than  of 
thought  itself. 

The  essences  of  literature  of  course  remain  the 
same  under  all  forms,  and  the  true  study  of  litera 
ture  is  the  study  of  these  essences,  —  a  study,  not 
of  forms  or  of  differences,  but  of  likenesses,  —  like- 


14  MERE  LITERATURE. 

nesses  of  spirit  and  intent  under  whatever  varieties 
of  method,  running  through  all  forms  of  speech 
like  the  same  music  along  the  chords  of  various  in 
struments.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  literature  is 
independent  of  form,  just  as  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  music  is  independent  of  its  instrument.  It 
is  my  cherished  belief  that  Apollo's  pipe  contained 
as  much  eloquent  music  as  any  modern  orchestra. 
Some  books  live  ;  many  die :  wherein  is  the  secret 
of  immortality  ?  Not  in  beauty  of  form,  nor  even 
in  force  of  passion.  We  might  say  of  literature 
what  Wordsworth  said  of  poetry,  the  most  easily 
immortal  part  of  literature  :  it  is  "  the  impassioned 
expression  which  is  in  the  countenance  of  all  science ; 
it  is  the  breath  of  the  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge." 
Poetry  has  the  easier  immortality  because  it  has 
the  sweeter  accent  when  it  speaks,  because  its 
phrases  linger  in  our  ears  to  delight  them,  because 
its  truths  are  also  melodies.  Prose  has  much  to 
overcome,  —  its  plainness  of  visage,  its  less  musical 
accents,  its  homelier  turns  of  phrase.  ButjLalSQ 
may  contain  the  immortal  essence  of  truth  and 
seriousness  and  high  thought.  It  too  may  clothe 
conviction  with  the  beauty  that  must  make  it  shine 
forever.  Let  a  man  but  have  beauty  in  his  heart, 
and,  believing  something  with  his  might,  put  it 
forth  arrayed  as  he  sees  it,  the  lights  and  shadows 


MERE  LITERATURE.  15 

falling  upon  it  on  his  page  as  they  fall  upon  it  in 
his  heart,  and  he  may  die  assured  that  that  beauty 
will  not  pass  away  out  of  the  world. 

Biographers  have  often  been  puzzled  by  the  con 
trast  between  certain  men  as  they  lived  and  as  they 
wrote.  Schopenhauer's  case  is  one  of  the  most 
singular.  A  man  of  turbident  life,  suffering  him 
self  to  be  cut  to  exasperation  by  the  petty  worries 
of  his  lot,  he  was  nevertheless  calm  and  wise  when 
he  wrote,  as  if  the  Muse  had  rebuked  him.  He 
wrote  at  a  still  elevation,  where  small  and  tempo 
rary  things  did  not  come  to  disturb  him.  'T  is  a 
pity  that  for  some  men  this  elevation  is  so  far  to 
seek.  They  lose  permanency  by  not  finding  it. 
Could  there  be  a  deliberate  regimen  of  life  for  the 
author,  it  is  plain  enough  how  he  ought  to  live,  not 
as  seeking  fame,  but  as  deserving  it. 

"  Fame,  like  a  wayward  girl,  will  still  be  coy 
To  those  who  woo  her  with  too  slavish  knees  ; 
But  makes  surrender  to  some  thoughtless  boy, 
And  dotes  the  more  upon  a  heart  at  ease. 

"  Ye  love-sick  bards,  repay  her  scorn  with  scorn ; 
Ye  love-sick  artists,  madmen  that  ye  are, 
Make  your  best  bow  to  her  and  bid  adieu ; 
Then,  if  she  likes  it,  she  will  follow  you." 

It  behooves  all  minor  authors  to  realize  the  pos 
sibility  of  their  being  discovered  some  day,  and 


L6  MERE  LITERATURE. 

exposed  to  the  general  scrutiny.  They  ought  to 
live  as  if  conscious  of  the  risk.  They  ought  to 
purge  their  hearts  of  everything  that  is  not  genuine 
and  capable  of  lasting  the  world  a  century,  at  least, 
if  need  be.  Mere  literature  isjnade  of^  spirit.  The 
difficulties  of  style  are  the  artist's  difficulties  with 
his  tools.  The  spirit  that  is  in  the  eye,  in  the  pose, 
in  inien  or  gesture,  the  painter  must  find  in  his 
color-box;  as  he  must  find  also  the  spirit  that 
nature  displays  upon  the  face  of  the  fields  or  in  the 
hidden  places  of  the  forest.  The  writer  has  less 
obvious  means.  Word  and  spirit  do  not  easily 
consort.  The  language  which  the  philologists  set 
out  before  us  with  such  curious  erudition  is  of  very 
little  use  as  a  vehicle  for  the  essences  of  the  human 
spirit.  It  is  too  sophisticated  and  self-conscious. 
What  you  need  is,  not  a  critical  knowledge  of 
language,  but  a  quick  feeling  for  it.  You  must 
recognize  the  affinities  between  your  spirit  and  its 
idioms.  You  must  immerse  your  phrase  in  your 
thought,  your  thought  in  your  phrase,  till  each  be 
comes  saturated  with  the  other.  Then  what  you 
produce  is  as  necessarily  fit  for  permanency  as  if  it 
were  incarnated  spirit. 

And  you  must  produce  in  color,  with  the  touch 
of  imagination  which  lifts  what  you  write  away 
from  the  dull  levels  of  mere  exposition.  Black- 


MERE  LITERATURE.  17 

and-white  sketches  may  serve  some  purposes  of  the 
artist,  but  very  little  of  actual  nature  is  in  mere 
black-and-white.  The  imagination  never  works 
thus  with  satisfaction.  Nothing  is  ever  conceived 
completely  when  conceived  so  grayly,  without  suf 
fusion  of  real  light.  The  mind  creates,  as  great 
Nature  does,  in  colors,  with  deep  chiaroscuro  and 
burning  lights.  This  is  true  not  only  of  poetry 
and  essentially  imaginative  writing,  but  also  of  the 
writing  which  seeks  nothing  more  than  to  penetrate 
the  meaning  of  actual  affairs,  —  the  writing  of 
the  greatest  historians  and  philosophers,  the  utter 
ances  of  orators  and  of  the  great  masters  of  polit 
ical  exposition.  Their  narratives,  their  analyses, 
their  appeals,  their  conceptions  of  principle,  are  all 
dipped  deep  in  the  colors  of  the  life  they  expound. 
Their  minds  respond  only  to  realities,  their  eyes  see 
only  actual  circumstance.  Their  sentences  quiver 
and  are  quick  with  visions  of  human  affairs,  —  how 
minds  are  bent  or  governed,  how  action  is  shaped 
or  thwarted.  The  great  "  constructive  "  minds,  as 
we  call  them,  are  of  this  sort.  They  "  construct " 
by  seeing  what  others  have  not  imagination  enough 
to  see.  llhey  do  not  always  know  more,  but  they 
always  realize  morel  Let  the  singular  reconstruc 
tion  of  Roman  history  and  institutions  by  Theodor 
Mommsen  serve  as  an  illustration.  Safe  men  dis- 


18  MEEE  LITERATURE. 

trust  this  great  master.  They  cannot  find  what  he 
finds  in  the  documents.  They  will  draw  you 
truncated  figures  of  the  antique  Eoman  state,  and 
tell  you  the  limbs  cannot  be  found,  the  features  of 
the  face  have  nowhere  been  unearthed.  They  will 
cite  you  fragments  such  as  remain,  and  show  you 
how  far  these  can  be  pieced  together  toward  the 
making  of  a  complete  description  of  private  life 
and  public  function  in  those  first  times  when  the 
Roman  commonwealth  was  young;  but  what  the 
missing  sentences  were  they  can  only  weakly  con 
jecture.  Their  eyes  cannot  descry  those  distant 
days  with  no  other  aids  than  these.  Only  the 
greatest  are  dissatisfied,  and  go  on  to  paint  that 
ancient  life  with  the  materials  that  will  render  it 
lifelike,  —  the  materials  of  the  constructive  imagi 
nation.  Th^y  have  other^sources  of^jiiformation. 
They  see  living  men  in  the  old  documents.  Give 
them  but  the  torso,  and  they  will  supply  head  and 
limbs,  bright  and  animate  as  they  must  have  been. 
If  Mommsen  does  not  quite  do  that,  another  man, 
with  Mommsen's  eye  and  a  touch  more  of  color  on 
his  brush,  might  have  done  it,  —  may  yet  do  it. 

It  is  in  this  way  that  we  get  some  glimpse  of  the 
only  relations  that  scholarship  bears  to  literature. 
Literature  can  do  without  exact  scholarship,  or 
any  scholarship  at  all,  though  it  may  impoverish 


MERE  LITERATURE.  19 

itself  thereby  ;  but  ...scholarship  cannot  do .  with 
out  literature.  It  ngeds  literature  to  float  it^  to 
set  it  current,  to  authenticate  it  to  the  race,  to  get 
it  out  of  closets,  and  into  the  brains  of  men  who 
stir  abroad.  It  will  adorn  literature,  no  doubt ; 
literature  will  be  the  richer  for  its  presence ;  but 
it  will  not,  it  cannot,  of  itself  create  literature. 
Rich  stuffs  from  the  East  do  not  create  a  king,  nor 
warlike  trappings  a  conqueror.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  natural  antagonism,  let  it  be  frankly  said,  be 
tween  the  standards  of  scholarship  and  the  stan 
dards  of  literature.  Exact  scholarship  values 
things  in  direct  proportion  as  they  are  verifiable ; 
but  literature  knows  nothing  of  such  tests.  The 
truths  which  it  seeks  are  the  truths  of  self-expres 
sion.  It  is  a  thing  of  convictions,  of  insights,  of 
what  is  felt  and  seen  and  heard  and  hoped  for.  Its 
meanings  lurk  behind  nature,  not  in  the  facts  of 
its  phenomena.  It^  speaks  of  things  as  the  man 
who  utters  it  saw  them,  not  necessarily  as  God 
made  them.  The  personality  of  the  speaker  runs 
throughout  all  the  sentences  of  real  literature.  That 
personality  may  not  be  the  personality  of  a  poet : 
it  may  be  only  the  personality  of  the  penetrative 
seer.  It  may  not  have  the  atmosphere  in  which 
visions  are  seen,  but  only  that  in  which  men  and 
affairs  look  keenly  cut  in  outline,  boldly  massed 


20  MERE  LITERATURE. 

in  bulk,  consummately  grouped  in  detail,  to  the 
reader  as  to  the  writer.  Sentences  of  perfectly 
clarified  wisdom  may  be  literature  no  less  than 
stanzas  of  inspired  song,  or  the  intense  utterances 
of  impassioned  feeling.  The  personality  of  the 
sunlight  is  in  the  keen  lines  of  light  that  run 
along  the  edges  of  a  sword  no  less  than  in  the  burn 
ing  splendor  of  the  rose  or  the  radiant  kindlings  of 
a  woman's  eye.  You  may  feel  the  power  of  one 
master  of  thought  playing  upon  your  brain  as  you 
may  feel  that  of  another  playing  upon  your  heart. 
Scholarship  gets  into  literature  by  becoming 
part  of  the  originating  individuality  of  a  master  of 
thought.  No  man  is  a  master  of  thought  without 
being  also  a  master  of  its  vehicle  and  instrument, 
style,  that  subtle  medium  of  all  its  evasive  effects 
of  light  and  shade.  Scholarship  is  material  ;  it 
It  becomes  immortal  only  when  it  is 


worted  upon  by  conviction,  by  schooled  and  chas 
tened^  imagination,  by  thought  that  runs  alive  out 
of  the^  inner  fountains  of  individual  insight  and 
pur^ose._  Colorless,  or  without  suffusion  of  light 
from  some  source  of  light,  it  is  dead,  and  will  not 
twice  be  looked  at  ;  but  made  part  of  the  life  of  a 
great  mind,  subordinated,  absorbed,  put  forth  with 
authentic  stamp  of  currency  on  it,  minted  at  some 
definite  mint  and  bearing  some  sovereign  image,  it 


MERE  LITERATURE.  21 

will  even  outlast  the  time  when  it  shall  have  ceased 
to  deserve  the  acceptance  of  scholars,  —  when  it 
shall,  in  fact,  have  become  "  mere  literature." 

Scholarship  is  the  realm  of  nicely  adjusted  opin 
ion.  It  is  the  business  of  scholars  to  assess  evi 
dence  and  test  conclusions,  to  discriminate  values 
and  reckon  probabilities.  Literature  is-the  realm 
of  conviction  and  vision.  Its  points  of  view  are  as 
various  as  they  are  oftentimes  unverifiable.  It 
speaks  individual  faiths.  Its  groundwork  is  not 
erudition,  but  reflection  and  fancy.  Your  thorough 
going  scholar  dare  not  reflect.  To  reflect  is  to  let 
himself  in  on  his  material ;  whereas  what  he  wants 
is  to  keep  himself  apart,  and  view  his  materials  in 
an  air  that  does  not  color  or  refract.  To  reflect  is 
to  throw  an  atmosphere  about  what  is  in  your 
mind,  —  an  atmosphere  which  holds  all  the  colors 
of  your  life.  Reflection  summons  all  associations, 
and  they  so  throng  and  move  that  they  dominate 
the  mind's  stage  at  once.  The  plot  is  in  their 
hands.  Scholars,  therefore,  do  not  reflect ;  they 
label,  group  kind  with  kind,  set  forth  in  schemes, 
expound  with  dispassionate  method.  Their  minds 
are  not  stages,  but  museums ;  nothing  is  done 
there,  but  very  curious  and  valuable  collections  are 
kept  there.  If  literature  use  scholarship,  it  is  only 
to  fill  it  with  fancies  or  shape  it  to  new  standards, 
of  which  of  itself  it  can  know  nothing. 


22  MERE  LITERATURE. 

True,  there  are  books  reckoned  primarily  books 
of  science  and  of  scholarship  which  have  neverthe 
less  won  standing  as  literature ;  books  of  science 
such  as  Newton  wrote,  books  of  scholarship  such 
as  Gibbon's.  But  science  was  only  the  vestibule 
by  which  such  a  man  as  Newton  entered  the  temple 
of  nature,  and  the  art  he  practiced  was  not  the  art 
of  exposition,  but  the  art  of  divination.  He  was 
not  only  a  scientist,  but  also  a  seer  ;  and  we  shall  not 
lose  sight  of  Newton  because  we  value  what  he  was 
more  than  what  he  knew.  If  we  continue  Gibbon 
in  his  fame,  it  will  be  for  love  of  his  art,  not  for 
worship  of  his  scholarship.  We  some  of  us,  now 
adays,  know  the  period  of  which  he  wrote  better 
even  than  he  did  ;  but  which  one  of  us  shall  build 
so  admirable  a  monument  to  ourselves,  as  artists, 
y  out  of  what  we  know?  The  scholar  finds  his  im- 
pmortality  in  the  form  he  gives  to  his  work.  It  is 
a  hard  saying,  but  the  truth  of  it  is  inexorable :  be 
an  artist,  or  prepare  for  oblivion.  You  may  write 
a  chronicle,  but  you  will  not  serve  yourself  thereby. 
You  will  only  serve  some  fellow  who  shall  come 
after  you,  possessing,  what  you  did  not  have,  an 
ear  for  the  words  you  could  not  hit  upon  ;  an  eye 
for  the  colors  you  could  not  see ;  a  hand  for  the 
I  strokes  you  missed. 

Real  literature  you  can  always  distinguish  by  its 


MERE  LITERATUBE.  23 

form,  and  yet  it  is  not  possible  to  indicate  the 
form  it  should  have.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  it 
should  have  a  form  suitable  to  its  matter  ;  but  how 
suitable?  Suitable  to  set  the  matter  off,  adorn, 
embellish  it,  or  suitable  simply  to  bring  it  directly, 
quick  and  potent,  to  the  apprehension  of  the  reader  ? 
This  is  the  question  of  style,  about  which  many 
masters  have  had  many  opinions ;  upon  which  you 
can  make  up  no  safe  generalization  from  the  prac 
tice  of  those  who  have  unquestionably  given  to  the 
matter  of  their  thought  immortal  form,  an  accent 
or  a  countenance  never  to  be  forgotten.  Who  shall 
say  how  much  of  Burke's  splendid  and  impressive 
imagery  is  part  and  stuff  of  his  thought,  or  tell 
why  even  that  part  of  Newman's  prose  which  is  de 
void  of  ornament,  stripped  to  its  shining  skin,  and 
running  bare  and  lithe  and  athle,tic  to  carry  its 
tidings  to  men,  should  promise  to  enjoy  as  certain 
an  immortality  ?  Why  should  Lamb  go  so  quaintly 
and  elaborately  to  work  upon  his  critical  essays, 
taking  care  to  perfume  every  sentence,  if  possible, 
with  the  fine  savor  of  an  old  phrase,  if  the  same 
business  could  be  as  effectively  done  in  the  plain 
and  even  cadences  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  prose  ? 
Why  should  Gibbon  be  so  formal,  so  stately,  so 
elaborate,  when  he  had  before  his  eyes  the  example 
of  great  Tacitus,  whose  direct,  sententious  style  had 


24  MERE  LITERATURE. 

outlived  by  so  many  hundred  years  the  very  lan 
guage  in  which  he  wrote  ?  In  poetry,  who  shall 
measure  the  varieties  of  style  lavished  upon  similar 
themes?  The  matter  of  vital  thought  is  not  sep 
arable  from  the  thinker  ;  its  forms  must  suit  his 
handling  as  well  as  fit  his  conception.  Any  style 
is  author's  stuff  which  is  suitable  to  his  purpose  and 
his  fancy.  He  may  use  rich  fabrics  with  which  to 
costume  his  thoughts,  or  he  may  use  simple  stone 
from  which  to  sculpture  them,  and  leave  them 
bare.  His  only  limits  are  those  of  art.  He  may 
not  indulge  a  taste  for  the  merely  curious  or  fan 
tastic.  The  quaint  writers  have  quaint  thoughts ; 
their  material  is  suitable.  They  do  not  merely 
satisfy  themselves  as  virtuosi,  with  collections  of 
odd  phrases  and  obsolete  meanings.  They  needed 
twisted  words  to  fit  the  eccentric  patterns  of  their 
thought.  The  great  writer  has  always  dignity,  re 
straint,  propriety,  adequateness ;  what  time  he 
loses  these  qualities  he  ceases  to  be  great.  His 
style  neither  creaks  nor  breaks  under  his  passion, 
but  carries  the  strain  with  unshaken  strength.  It 
is  not  trivial  or  mean,  but  speaks  what  small  mean 
ings  fall  in  its  way  with  simplicity,  as  conscious  of 
their  smallness.  Its  playfulness  is  within  bounds ; 
its  laugh  never  bursts  too  boisterously  into  a 
guffaw.  A  great  style  always  knows  what  it  would 


MERE  LITERATURE.  25 

be  at,  and  does  the  thing  appropriately,  with  the 
larger  sort  of  taste. 

This  is  the  condemnation  of  tricks  of  phrase,  de 
vices  to  catch  the  attention,  exaggerations  and  loud 
talk  to  hold  it.  No  writer  can  afford  to  strive 
after  effect,  if  his  striving  is  to  be  apparent.  For 
just  and  permanent  effect  is  missed  altogether 
unless  it  be  so  completely  attained  as  to  seem  like 
some  touch  of  sunlight,  perfect,  natural,  inevitable, 
wrought  without  effort  and  without  deliberate  pur 
pose  to  be  effective.  Mere  audacity  of  attempt 
can,  of  course,  never  win  the  wished  for  result ; 
and  if  the  attempt  be  successful,  it  is  not  auda 
cious.  What  we  call  audacity  in  a  great  writer 
has  no  touch  of  temerity,  sauciness,  or  arrogance  in 
it.  It  is  simply  high  spirit,  a  dashing  and  splen 
did  display  of  strength.  Boldness  is  ridiculous 
unless  it  be  impressive,  and  it  can  be  impressive 
only  when  backed  by  solid  forces  of  character  and 
attainment.  Your  plebeian  hack  cannot  afford  the 
showy  paces;  only  the  full-blooded  Arabian  has 
the  sinew  and  proportion  to  lend  them  perfect 
grace  and  propriety.  The  art  of  letters  eschews 
the  bizarre  as  rigidly  as  does  every  other  fine  art. 
It  mixes  its  colors  with  brains,  and  is  obedient  to 
great  Nature's  sane  standards  of  right  adjustment 
in  all  that  it  attempts. 


26 


MERE  LITERATURE, 


You  can  make  no  catalogue  of  these  features  of 
great  writing;  there  is  no  science  of  literature. 
Literature  in  its  essence  is  raare  spirit,  and  you 

must  experience  it  rather  th'ajdBkialyze  it  too  for- 

i  *  *"~* ~*^  Tiiisttf^~*~*^  — "~ — 

mallv.     It  is  the  door  to  nwBfiand  to  ourselves. 

J — -—*====— —• >»^H  K -; T. 

t  opens  our  hearts  to  re«  Kie  experiences  or 
great  men  and  the  conceptions  of  great  races.  It 
awakens  us  to  the  signuH  ^B.  action  and  to  the 
singular  power  of  menW  I  It  airs  our  souls 

in   the  wide  atmosphdB  Btemplation.     "  In 

these  bad  days,  whejB  B^ght   more  educa 

tionally  useful  to  Ipibw  t  BRciple  of  the  com 
mon  pump  than  Ke^HHBKa  Grecian  Urn,"  as 
Mr.  Birrell  says,  we  canffot  afford  to  let  one  single 
precious  sentence  of  "  mere  literature  "  go  by  us 
r«imread  or  unpraised.  If  this  free  people  to  which 
we  belong  is  to  keep  its  fine  spirit,  its  perfect  tem 
per  amidst  affairs,  its  high  courage  in  the  face  of 
difficulties,  its  wise  temperateness  and  wide-eyed 
hope,  it  must  continue  to  drink  deep  and  often 
from  the  old  wells  of  English  undefiled,  quaff  the 
keen  tonic  of  ifs^best  ideals,  keep  its  blood  warm 
with  all  the  great  utterances  of  exalted  purpose 
and  pure  principle  of  which  its  matchless  litera 
ture  is  full.  The  great  spirits  of  the  past  must 
command  us  in  the  tasks  of  the  future.  Mere 
literature  will  keep  us  pure  and  keep  us  strong. 


MERE  LITERATURE. 


27 


Even  though  it  puzzle  or  altogether  escape  scien 
tific  method,  it  may  keep  our  horizon  clear  for  us, 
and  our  eyes  glad  to  look  bravely  forth  upon  the    / 
world. 


n. 

THE    AUTHOR    HIMSELF. 

WHO  can  help  wondering,  concerning  the  modern 
multitude  of  books,  where  all  these  companions  of 
his  reading  hours  will  be  buried  when  they  die ; 
which  will  have  monuments  erected  to  them ;  which 
escape  the  envy  of  time  and  live  ?  It  is  pathetic 
to  think  of  the  number  that  must  be  forgotten, 
after  having  been  removed  from  the  good  places  to 
make  room  for  their  betters. 

Much  the  most  pathetic  thought  about  books, 
however,  is  that  excellence  will  not  save  them. 
Their  fates  will  be  as  whimsical  as  those  of  the 
humankind  which  produces  them.  Knaves  find  it 
as  easy  to  get  remembered  as  good  men.  It  is  not 
right  living  or  learning  or  kind  offices,  simply  and 
of  themselves,  but  —  something  else  that  gives 
immortality  of  fame.  Be  a  book  never  so  schol 
arly,  it  may  die  ;  be  it  never  so  witty,  or  never  so 
full  of  good  feeling  and  of  an  honest  statement 
of  truth,  it  may  not  live. 

When  once  a  book  has  become  immortal,  we 
think  that  we  can  see  why  it  became  so.  It  contained, 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  29 

we  perceive,  a  casting  of  thought  which  could  not 
but  arrest  and  retain  men's  attention ;  it  said  some 
things  once  and  for  all  because  it  gave  them  their 
best  expression.  Or  else  it  spoke  with  a  grace  or 
with  a  fire  of  imagination,  with  a  sweet  cadence 
of  phrase  and  a  full  harmony  of  tone,  which  have 
made  it  equally  dear  to  all  generations  of  those 
who  love  the  free  play  of  fancy  or  the  incomparable 
music  of  perfected  human  speech.  Or  perhaps  it 
uttered  with  candor  and  simplicity  some  universal 
sentiment ;  perchance  pictured  something  in  the 
tragedy  or  the  comedy  of  man's  life  as  it  was  never 
pictured  before,  and  must  on  that  account  be  read 
and  read  again  as  not  to  be  superseded.  There 
must  be  something  special,  we  judge,  either  in  its 
form  or  in  its  substance,  to  account  for  its  unwonted 
fame  and  fortune. 

This  upon  first  analysis,  taking  one  book  at  a 
time.  A  look  deeper  into  the  heart  of  the  matter 
enables  us  to  catch  at  least  a  glimpse  of  a  single 
and  common  source  of  immortality.  The  world  is 
attracted  by  books  as  each  man  is  attracted  by  his 
several  friends.  You  recommend  that  capital  fel 
low  So-and-So  to  the  acquaintance  of  others  because 
of  his  discriminating  and  diverting  powers  of  obser 
vation  :  the  very  tones  and  persons  —  it  would 
seem  the  very  selves  —  of  every  type  of  man  live 


30  THE  AUTHOE  HIMSELF. 

again  in  his  mimicries  and  descriptions.  He  is  the 
dramatist  of  your  circle ;  you  can  never  forget  him, 
nor  can  any  one  else  ;  his  circle  of  acquaintances  can 
never  grow  smaller.  Could  he  live  on  and  retain 
perennially  that  wonderful  freshness  and  vivacity 
of  his,  he  must  become  the  most  famous  guest  and 
favorite  of  the  world.  Who  that  has  known  a  man 
quick  and  shrewd  to  see  dispassionately  the  inner 
history,  the  reason  and  the  ends,  of  the  combinations 
of  society,  and  at  the  same  time  eloquent  to  tell  of 
them,  with  a  hold  on  the  attention  gained  by  a  cer 
tain  quaint  force  and  sagacity  resident  in  no  other 
man,  can  find  it  difficult  to  understand  why  we 
still  resort  to  Montesquieu?  Possibly  there  are 
circles  favored  of  the  gods  who  have  known  some 
fellow  of  infinite  store  of  miscellaneous  and  curious 
learning,  who  has  greatly  diverted  both  himself 
and  his  friends  by  a  way  peculiar  to  himself  of  giv 
ing  it  out  upon  any  and  all  occasions,  item  by  item, 
as  if  it  were  all  homogeneous  and  of  a  piece,  and 
by  his  odd  skill  in  making  unexpected  application 
of  it  to  out-of-the-way,  unpromising  subjects,  as  if 
there  were  in  his  view  of  things  mental  no  such  dis 
integrating  element  as  incongruity.  Such  a  circle 
would  esteem  it  strange  were  Burton  not  beloved 
of  the  world.  And  so  of  those,  if  any  there  be, 
who  have  known  men  of  simple,  calm,  transparent 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  31 

natures,  untouched  by  storm  or  perplexity,  whose 
talk  was  full  of  such  serious,  placid  reflection  as 
seemed  to  mirror  their  own  reverent  hearts,  — 
talk  often  prosy,  but  more  often  touchingly  beauti 
ful,  because  of  its  nearness  to  nature  and  the  solemn 
truth  of  life.  There  may  be  those,  also,  who  have 
felt  the  thrill  of  personal  contact  with  some  stormy 
peasant  nature  full  of  strenuous,  unsparing  speech 
concerning  men  and  affairs.  These  have  known 
why  a  Wordsworth  or  a  Carlyle  must  be  read  by 
all  generations  of  those  who  love  words  of  first-hand 
inspiration.  In  short,  in^evej5L-^ase--^rPiiterary 

immortality    originative    personality    is present. 

Not  origination  simply,  —  that  may  be  mere  inven 
tion,  which  in  literature  has  nothing  immortal  about 
it ;  but  origination  which  takes,  its  stamp  and  char 
acter  from  the  originator,  which  is  his  spirit  given 
to  the  world,  which  is  himself  outspoken. 

Individuality  does  not  consist  in  the  use  of  the 
very  personal  pronoun,  /:  it  consists  in  tone,  in 
method,  in  attitude,  in  point  of  view  ;  it  consists  in 
saying  things  in  such  a  way  that  you  will  yourself 
be  recognized  as  a  force  in  saying  them.  Do  we 
not  at  once  know  Lamb  when  he  speaks?  And 
even  more  formal  Addison,  does  not  his  speech  be 
wray  and  endear  him  to  us  ?  His  personal  charm 
is  less  distinct,  much  less  fascinating,  than  that 


32  THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF. 

which  goes  with  what  Lamb  speaks,  but  a  charm  he 
has  sufficient  for  immortality.  In  Steele  the  mat 
ter  is  more  impersonal,  more  mortal.  Some  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  essays,  you  feel,  might  have  been  written 
by  a  dictionary.  It  is  impersonal  matter  that  is 
dead  matter.  Are  you  asked  who  fathered  a  cer 
tain  brilliant,  poignant  bit  of  political  analysis? 
You  say,  Why,  only  Bagehot  could  have  written 
that.  Does  a  wittily  turned  verse  make  you  hesi 
tate  between  laughter  at  its  hit  and  grave  thought 
because  of  its  deeper,  covert  meaning  ?  Do  you 
not  know  that  only  Lowell  could  do  that  ?  Do 
you  catch  a  strain  of  pure  Elizabethan  music  and 
doubt  whether  to  attribute  it  to  Shakespeare  or  to 
another  ?  Do  you  not  know  the  authors  who  still 
live? 

Now,  the  noteworthy  thing  about  such  individu 
ality  is  that  it  will  not  develop  under  every  star,  or 
in  one  place  just  as  well  as  in  another ;  there  is  an 
atmosphere  which  kills  it,  and  there  is  an  atmo 
sphere  which  fosters  it.  The  atmosphere  which 
kills  it  is  the  atmosphere  of  sophistication,  where 
cleverness  and  fashion  and  knowingness  thrive : 
cleverness,  which  is  froth,  not  strong  drink ;  fash 
ion,  which  is  a  thing  assumed,  not  a  thing  of 
nature  ;  and  knowingness,  which  is  naught. 

Of  course  there  are  born,  now  and  again,  as 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  33 

tokens  of  some  rare  mood  of  Nature,  men  of  so 
intense  and  individual  a  cast  ^that  circumstance  and 
surroundings  affect  them  little  more  than  friction 
affects  an  express  train.  They  command  their  own 
development  without  even  the  consciousness  that  to 
command  costs  strength.  These  cannot  be  sophis 
ticated  ;  for  sophistication  is  subordination  to  the 
ways  of  your  world.  But  these  are  the  very  great 
est  and  the  very  rarest ;  and  it  is  not  the  greatest 
and  the  rarest  alone  who  shape  the  world  and  its 
thought.  That  is  done  also  by  the  great  and  the 
merely  extraordinary.  There  is  a  rank  and  file  in 
literature,  even  in  the  literature  of  immortality,  and 
these  must  go  much  to  school  to  the  people  about 
them. 

It  is  by  the  number  and  charm  of  the  individual 
ities  which  it  contains  that  the  literature  of  any 
country  gains  distinction.  We  turn  any  whither  to 
know  men.  The  best  way  to  foster  literature,  if  it 
may  be  fostered,  is  to  cultivate  the  author  himself, 
—  a  plant  of  such  delicate  and  precarious  growth 
that  special  soils  are  needed  to  produce  it  in  its  full 
perfection.  The  conditions  which  foster  individual- 
ity  are  those  which  foster  simplicity,  thought  and 
action  which  are  direct,  naturalness,  spontaneity. 
What  are  these  conditions  ? 

In  the  first  place,  a  certain  helpful  ignorance. 


34  THE  AUTHOE  HIMSELF. 

It  is  best  for  the  author  to  be  born  away  from  lit 
erary  centres,  or  to  be  excluded  from  their  ruling 
set  if  he  be  born  in  them.  It  is  best  that  he  start 
out  with  his  thinking,  not  knowing  how  much  has 
been  thought  and  said  about  everything.  A  certain 
amount  of  ignorance  will  insure  his  sincerity,  will 
increase  his  boldness  and  shelter  his  genuineness, 
which  is  his  hope  of  power.  Not  ignorance  of  life, 
but  life  may  be  learned  in  any  neighborhood  ;  — 
not  ignorance  of  the  greater  laws  which  govern 
human  affairs,  but  they  may  be  learned  without  a 
library  of  historians  and  commentators,  by  imagina 
tive  sense,  by  seeing  better  than  by  reading  ;  —  not 
ignorance  of  the  infinitudes  of  human  circumstance, 
but  these  may  be  perceived  without  the  intervention 
of  universities ;  —  not  ignorance  of  one's  self  and 
of  one's  neighbor ;  but  innocence  of  the  sophistica 
tions  of  learning,  its  research  without  love,  its  know 
ledge  without  inspiration,  its  method  without  grace ; 
freedom  from  its  shame  at  trying  to  know  many 
things  as  well  as  from  its  pride  of  trying  to  know 
but  one  thing ;  ignorance  of  that  faith  in  small  con 
founding  facts  which  is  contempt  for  large  reassur 
ing  principles. 

Our  present  problem  is  not  how  to  clarify  our 
reasonings  and  perfect  our  analyses,  but  how  to 
reenrich  and  reenergize  our  literature.  That  litera- 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  35 

ture  is  suffering,  not  from  ignorance,  but  from 
sophistication  and  self -consciousness ;  and  it  is  suf 
fering  hardly  less  from  excess  of  logical  method. 
Eatiocination  does  not  keep  us  pure,  render  us 
earnest,  or  make  us  individual  and  specific  forces 
in  the  world.  Those  inestimable  results  are  ac 
complished  by  whatever  implants  principle  and 
conviction,  whatever  quickens  with  inspiration, 
fills  with  purpose  and  courage,  gives  outlook,  and 
makes  character.  Reasoned  thinking  does  indeed 
clear  the  mind's  atmospheres  and  lay  open  to  its 
view  fields  of  action ;  but  it  is  loving  and  be 
lieving,  sometimes  hating  and  distrusting,  often 
prejudice  and  passion,  always  the  many  things 
which  we  call  the  one  thing,  character,  which 
create  and  shape  our  acting.  Life  quite  overtowers 
logic.  Thinking  and  erudition  alone  will  not  equip 
for  the  great  tasks  and  triumphs  of  life  and  litera 
ture  :  the  persuading  of  other  men's  purposes,  the 
entrance  into  other  men's  minds  to  possess  them 
forever.  Culture  broadens  and  sweetens  literature, 
but  native  sentiment  and  unmarred  individuality 
create  it.  Not  aUjof  mental  power  lies  in  the  pro 
cesses  of  thinking.  There  is  power ^Jso  in  passion, 
in  personality,  in  simple,  native,  uncritical  con- 
viction^^in  unschooled  feeling.  Thfi_pQw^r  of 
science,  of  system,  is  executive,  not  stimulative.  I 


36  THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF. 

do  not  find  that  I  derive  inspiration,  but  only  in 
formation,  from  the  learned  historians  and  analysts 
of  liberty ;  but  from  the  sonneteers,  the  poets,  who, 
speak  its  spirit  and  its  exalted  purpose,  —  who, 
reeking  nothing  of  the  historical  method,  obey  only 
the  high  method  of  their  own  hearts,  — wha/bjnaff- 
a  man  not  gain  of  mmrafffl  and  pnnfirlpnpA  in  the 
right  way  of  politics  ? 

It  is  your  direct,  unhesitating,  intent,  headlong 
man,  who  has  his  sources  in  the  mountains,  who 
digs  deep  channels  for  himself  in  the  soil  of  his 
times  and  expands  into  the  mighty  river,  to  become 
a  landmark  forever ;  and  not  your  "  broad  "  man, 
sprung  from  the  schools,  who  spreads  his  shallow, 
extended  waters  over  the  wide  surfaces  of  learning, 
to  leave  rich  deposits,  it  may  be,  for  other  men's 
crops  to  grow  in,  but  to  be  himself  dried  up  by  a 
few  score  summer  noons.  The  man  thrown  early 
upon  his  own  resources,  and  already  become  a  con 
queror  of  success  before  being  thrown  with  the 
literary  talkers ;  the  man  grown  to  giant's  stature 
in  some  rural  library,  and  become  exercised  there 
in  a  giant's  prerogatives  before  ever  he  has  been 
laughingly  told,  to  his  heart's  confusion,  of  scores 
of  other  giants  dead  and  forgotten  long  ago ;  the 
man  grounded  in  hope  and  settled  in  conviction 
ere  he  has  discovered  how  many  hopes  time  has 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  37 

seen  buried,  how  many  convictions  cruelly  given 
the  lie  direct  by  fate ;  the  man  who  has  carried 
his  youth  into  middle  age  before  going  into  the 
chill  atmosphere  of  blase  sentiment ;  the  quiet, 
stern  man  who  has  cultivated  literature  on  a  little 
oatmeal  before  thrusting  himself  upon  the  great 
world  as  a  prophet  and  seer ;  the  man  who  pro 
nounces  new  eloquence  in  the  rich  dialect  in  which 
he  was  bred;  the  man  come  up  to  the  capital 
from  the  provinces,  —  these  are  the  men  who  peo 
ple  the  world's  mind  with  new  creations,  and  give 
to  the  sophisticated  learned  of  the  next  generation 
new  names  to  conjure  with. 

If  you  have  a  candid  and  well-informed  friend 
among  city  lawyers,  ask  him  where  the  best  mas 
ters  of  his  profession  are  bred,  —  in  the  city  or  in 
the  country.  He  will  reply  without  hesitation, 
"  In  the  country."  You  will  hardly  need  to  have 
him  state  the  reason.  The  country  lawyer  has 
been  obliged  to  study  all  parts  of  the  law  alike,  and 
he  has  known  no  reason  why  he  should  not  do  so. 
He  has  not  had  the  chance  to  make  himself  a 
specialist  in_any  one  branch  of  the  law,  as  is  the 
fashion  among  city  practitioners,  and  he  has  not 
coveted  the  opportunity  to  do  it.  There  would  not 
have  been  enough  special  cases  to  occupy  or  remun 
erate  him  if  he  had  coveted  it.  He  has  dared 


38  THE  AUTHOE  HIMSELF. 

attempt  the  task  of  knowing  the  whole  law,  and 
yet  without  any  sense  of  daring,  but  as  a  matter  of 
course.  In  his  own  little  town,  in  the  midst  of  his 
own  small  library  of  authorities,  it  has  not  seemed 
to  him  an  impossible  task  to  explore  all  the  topics 
that  engage  his  profession ;  the  guiding  principles, 
at  any  rate,  of  all  branches  of  the  great  subject 
were  open  to  him  in  a  few  books.  And  so  it  often 
happens  that  when  he  has  found  his  sea  legs  on 
the  sequestered  inlets  at  home,  and  ventures,  as 
he  sometimes  will,  upon  the  great,  troublous,  and 
much-frequented  waters  of  city  practice  in  search 
of  more  work  and  larger  fees,  the  country  lawyer 
will  once  and  again  confound  his  city-bred  brethren 
by  discovering  to  them  the  fact  that  the  law  is  a 
many-sided  thing  of  principles,  and  not  altogether 
a  one-sided  thing  of  technical  rule  and  arbitrary 
precedent. 

It  would  seem  to  be  necessary  that  the  author 
who  is  to  stand  as  a  distinct  and  imperative  indi 
vidual  among  the  company  of  those  who  express 
the  world's  thought  should  come  to  a  hard  crystal 
lization  before  subjecting  himself  to  the  tense  strain 
of  cities,  the  corrosive  acids  of  critical  circles. 
The  ability  to  see  for  one's  self  is  attainable,  not 
by  mixing  with  crowds  and  ascertaining  how  they 
look  at  things,  but  by  a  certain  aloofness  and  self- 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  39 

containment.  The  solitariness  of  some  genius  is 
not  accidental;  it  is  characteristic  and  essential. 
To  the  constructive  imagination  there  are  some  im 
mortal  feats  which  are  possible  only  in  seclusion. 
The  man__niust  heed_first  andjmost  of _  jail  the  sug 
gestions  of  his  own  spirit ;  and  the  world  can  be 
seen  from  windows  overlooking  the  street  better 
than  from  the  street  itself. 


Literature  grows  rich,  various,  full- voiced  largely 
through  the  re-discovery  of  truth,  by  thinking  re 
thought,  by  stories  re-told,  by  songs  re-sung.  The 
song  of  human  experience  grows  richer  and  richer 
in  its  harmonies,  and  must  grow  until  the  full  ac 
cord  and  melody  are  come.  If  too  soon  subjected 
to  the  tense  strain  of  the  city,  a  man  cannot  ex 
pand  ;  he  is  beaten  out  of  his  natural  shape  by  the 
incessant  impact  and  press  of  men  and  affairs.  It 
will  often  turn  out  that  the  unsophisticated  man 
will  display  not  only  more  force,  but  more  literary 
skill  even,  than  the  trained  litterateur.  For  one 
thing,  he  will  probably  have  enjoyed  a  fresher  con 
tact  with  old  literature.  He  reads  not  for  the  sake 
of  a  critical  acquaintance  with  this  or  that  author, 
with  no  thought  of  going  through  all  his  writings 
and  "working  him  up,"  but  as  he  would  ride  a 
spirited  horse,  for  love  of  the  life  and  motion  of  it. 

A  general  "impression  seems  to  have  gained  cur- 


40  THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF. 

rency  that  the  last  of  the  bullying,  omniscient 
critics  was  buried  in  the  grave  of  Francis  Jeffrey ; 
and  it  is  becoming  important  to  correct  the  misap 
prehension.  There  never  was  a  time  when  there 
was  more  superior  knowledge,  more  specialist 
omniscience,  among  reviewers  than  there  is  to-day ; 
not  pretended  superior  knowledge,  but  real.  Jef 
frey's  was  very  real  of  its  kind.  For  those  who 
write  books,  one  of  the  special,  inestimable  advan 
tages  of  lacking  a  too  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
"  world  of  letters  "  consists  in  not  knowing  all  that 
is  known  by  those  who  review  books,  in  ignorance 
of  the  fashions  among  those  who  construct  canons 
of  taste.  The  modern  critic  is  a  leader  of  fashion. 
He  carries  with  him  the  air  of  a  literary  worldli- 
ness.  If  your  book  be  a  novel,  your  reviewer  will 
know  all  previous  plots,  all  former,  all  possible, 
motives  and  situations.  You  cannot  write  any 
thing  absolutely  new  for  him,  and  why  should  you 
desire  to  do  again  what  has  been  done  already  ? 
If  it  be  a  poem,  the  reviewer's  head  already  rings 
with  the  whole  gamut  of  the  world's  metrical  music ; 
he  can  recognize  any  simile,  recall  all  turns  of 
phrase,  match  every  sentiment ;  why  seek  to  please 
him  anew  with  old  things?  If  it  concern  itself 
with  the  philosophy  of  politics,  he  can  and  will  set 
himself  to  test  it  by  the  whole  history  of  its  kind 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  41 

from  Plato  down  to  Benjamin  Kidd.  How  can  it 
but  spoil  your  sincerity  to  know  that  your  critic 
will  know  everything?  Will  you  not  be  tempted 
of  the  devil  to  anticipate  his  judgment  or  his  pre 
tensions  by  pretending  to  know  as  much  as  he  ? 

The  literature  of  creation  naturally  falls  into  two 
kinds  :  that  which  interprets  nature  or  human  ac-  v 
tion,  and  that  which  interprets  self.  Both  of  these 
may  have  the  flavor  of  immortality,  but  neither 
unless  it  be  free  from  self-consciousness.  No  man, 
therefore,  can  create  after  the  best  manner  in  either 
of  these  kinds  who  is  an  habitue  of  the  circles 
made  so  delightful  by  those  interesting  men,  the 
modern'  literati,  sophisticated  in  all  the  fashions, 
ready  in  all  the  catches  of  the  knowing  literary 
world  which  centres  in  the  city  and  the  university. 
He  cannot  always  be  simple  and  straightforward. 
He  cannot  be  always  and  without  pretension  him 
self,  bound  by  no  other  man's  canons  of  taste  in 
speech  or  conduct.  In  the  judgment  of  such  cir 
cles  there  is  but  one  thing  for  you  to  do  if  you 
would  gain  distinction  :  you  must  "  beat  the  rec 
ord  ;  "  you  must  do  certain  definite  literary  feats 
better  than  they  have  yet  been  done.  You  are 
pitted  against  the  literary  "  field."  You  are  has 
tened  into  the  paralysis  of  comparing  yourself  with 
others,  and  thus  away  from  the  health  of  unhesi- 


42  THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF. 

tating  self-expression  and  directness  of  first-hand 
vision. 

It  would  be  not  a  little  profitable  if  we  could 
make  correct  analysis  of  the  proper  relations  of 
learning  —  learning  of  the  critical,  accurate  sort  — 
to  origination,  of  learning's  place  in  literature. 
Although  learning  is  never  the  real  parent  of  liter 
ature,  but  only  sometimes  its  foster-father,  and  al 
though  the  native  promptings  of  soul  and  sense  are 
its  best  and  freshest  sources,  there  is  always  the 
danger  that  learning  will  claim,  in  every  court  of 
taste  which  pretends  to  jurisdiction,  exclusive  and 
preeminent  rights  as  the  guardian  and  preceptor 
of  authors.  An  effort  is  constantly  being  made  to 
create  and  maintain  standards  of  literary  worldli- 
ness,  if  I  may  coin  such  a  phrase.  The  thorough 
man  of  the  world  aff^lJjlXJPSpisp,  "^ral  fpeb'ng ; 
does  at~any  rate  actually  despise  all  displays  of 
it.  HeTias  an  eye  always^^  man- 

ne"rs7 whethel*~native  or  imported,  and  is  at  contin- 
uaTpains  to  be  master  of  thg^rmv^t1'™^  ^  society ; 
he  will  mortify  the  natural_man  as  much  as  need 
be  in  order  to  be  in  good  form.  What  learned 
criticism  essays  to  do  is  to  create  a  similar  literary 
worldliness,  to  establish  fashions  and  conventions  in 
letters. 

I  have  an  odd  friend  in  one  of  the  northern  coun- 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  43 

ties  of  Georgia,  —  a  county  set  off  by  itself  among 
the  mountains,  but  early  found  out  by  refined  people 
in  search  of  summer  refuge  from  the  unhealthful 
air  of  the  southern  coast.  He  belongs  to  an  excel 
lent  family  of  no  little  culture,  but  he  was  sur 
prised  in  the  midst  of  his  early  schooling  by  the 
coming  on  of  the  war  ;  and  education  given  pause 
in  such  wise  seldom  begins  again  in  the  schools0 
He  was  left,  therefore,  to  "  finish  "  his  mind  as 
best  he  might  in  the  companionship  of  the  books  in 
his  uncle's  library.  These  books  were  of  the  old 
sober  sort :  histories,  volumes  of  travels,  treatises 
on  laws  and  constitutions,  theologies,  philosophies 
more  fanciful  than  the  romances  encased  hi  neigh 
bor  volumes  on  another  shelf.  But  they  were  books 
which  were  used  to  being  taken  down  and  read ; 
they  had  been  daily  companions  to  the  rest  of  the 
family,  and  they  became  familiar  companions  to  my 
friend's  boyhood.  He  went  to  them  day  after  day, 
because  theirs  was  the  only  society  offered  him  in 
the  lonely  days  when  uncle  and  brothers  were  at 
the  war,  and  the  women  were  busy  about  the  tasks 
of  the  home.  How  literally  did  he  make  those 
delightful  old  volumes  his  familiars,  his  cronies  ! 
He  never  dreamed  the  while,  however,  that  he  was 
becoming  learned ;  it  never  seemed  to  occur  to  him 
that  everybody  else  did  not  read  just  as  he  did,  in  just 


44  THE  AUTHOE  HIMSELF. 

such  a  library.  He  found  out  afterwards,  of  course, 
that  he  had  kept  much  more  of  such  company  than 
had  the  men  with  whom  he  loved  to  chat  at  the 
post-office  or  around  the  fire  in  the  village  shops, 
the  habitual  resorts  of  all  who  were  socially  in 
clined;  but  he  attributed  that  to  lack  of  time  on 
their  part,  or  to  accident,  and  has  gone  on  thinking 
until  now  that  all  the  books  that  come  within  his 
reach  are  the  natural  intimates  of  man.  And  so 
you  shall  hear  him,  in  his  daily  familiar  talk  with 
his  neighbors,  draw  upon  his  singular  stores  of  wise, 
quaint  learning  with  the  quiet  colloquial  assurance, 
"  They  tell  me,"  as  if  books  contained  current 
rumor  ;  and  quote  the  poets  with  the  easy  unaffect- 
edness  with  which  others  cite  a  common  maxim  of 
the  street !  He  has  been  heard  to  refer  to  Dr. 
Arnold  of  Rugby  as  "  that  school  teacher  over  there 
in  England." 

Surely  one  may  treasure  the  image  of  this 
simple,  genuine  man  of  learning  as  the  image  of  a 
sort  of  masterpiece  of  Nature  in  her  own  type  of 
erudition,  a  perfect  sample  of  the  kind  of  learning 
that  might  beget  the  very  highest  sort  of  literature  ; 
foojit^ttnTP,  "3,™r1y,  of  nnthpTiticJndividuality.  It 
is  only  under  one  of  two  conditions  that  learning 
will  not  dull  the  edge  of  individuality :  first,  if  one 
never  suspect  that  it  is  creditable  and  a  matter  of 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  45 

pride  to  be  learned,  and  so  never  become  learned 
for  the  sake  of  becoming  so  ;  or,  second,  if  it  never 
suggest  to  one  that  investigation  is  better  than 
reflection.  Learned  investigation  leads  to  many  , 
good  things,  but  one  of  these  is  not  great  litera 
ture,  because  learned  investigation  commands,  as 
the  first  condition  of  its  success,  the  repression  of 
individuality. 

His  mind  is  a  great  comfort  to  every  man  who 
has  one  ;  but  a  heart  is  not  often  to  be  so  conven 
iently  possessed.  Hearts  frequently^give  trouble  ; 
they  ar^straightforward  and  impulsive,  and  can 
seldom  be  induced"  to  be  prudent.  They  must  be 

e  insensible  ;  they 


must  be  coached  before  they  can  be  made  to  care 
first  and  most  for  themselves  :  and  in  all  cases  the 
mind  must  be  their  schoolmaster  and  coach.  They 
are  irregular  forces  ;  but  the  mind  may  be  trained 
to  observe  all  points  of  circumstance  and  all  mo 
tives  of  occasion. 

No  doubt  it  is  considerations  of  this  nature  that 
must  be  taken  to  explain  the  fact  that  our  univer 
sities  are  erected_ejitirfily__£or  the  service.,  of  the 
tractable  mind,  while  the  heart's  only  education 
must  be  gotten  from  association  with  its  neighbor 
heart,  and  in  the  ordinary  courses  of  the  world. 
Life  is  its  only  university.  Mind  is  monarch, 


46  THE  AUTHOB  HIMSELF. 

whose  laws  claim  supremacy  in  those  lands  which 
boast  the  movements  of  civilization,  and  it  must 
command  all  the  instrumentalities  of  education. 
At  least  such  is  the  theory  of  the  constitution  of 
the  modern  world.  Itjs  to  be  suspecte_djthaty-as  a 
matf.ftrnfjfft(»|;1tmim4  fe  one  of  thn«atMqfto4fTii  mmiarchs 
who  reign,  but  do  not  govern.  That  old  House  of 
Commons,  that  popular* chamber  in  which  the  pas 
sions,  the  prejudices,  the  inborn,  unthinking  affec 
tions  long  ago  repudiated  by  mind,  have  their  full 
representation,  controls  much  the  greater  part  of 
the  actual  conduct  of  affairs.  To  come  out  of  the 
figure,  reasoned  thought  is,  though  perhaps  the  pre 
siding,  not  yet  the  regnant  force  in  the  world.  In 
life  and  in  literature  it  is  subordinate.  The  future 
may  belong  to  it ;  but  the  present  and  past  do  not. 
Faithjind^rtue^^ 

loyalty,  patriotism,  do  not  derive  their  motives  from 
it.  It  does  InbTf urnSh  the  material  for  those  masses 
of  habit,  of  unquestioned  tradition,  and  of  treasured 
belieYwpch  are  the  ballasToF~every  steady  ship  of 
state,  enabling  it  to  spread  its  sails  safely  to  the 
breezes  of  progress,  and  even  to  stand  before  the 
storms  of  revolution.  And  this  is  a  fact  which 
has  its  reflection  in  literature.  There  is  a  litera 
ture  of  reasoned  thought ;  but  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  those  writings  which  we  reckon  worthy  of 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  47 

that  great  name  is  the  product,  not  o£  reasoned 
thought,  but  of  the  imagination  and  of  the  spiritual 
vision  of  those  who  see,  —  writings  winged,  not 
with  knowledge,  but  with  sympathy,  with  sentiment, 
with  heartiness.  Even  the  literature  of  reasoned 
thought  gets  its  life,  not  from  its  logic,  but  from 
the  spirit,  the  insight,  and  the  inspiration  which 
are  the  vehicle  of  its  logic.  Thought  presides^^but 
sentiment  has  the  executive  powers  ;  the  motive 
functions  belong  to  feeling. 

"  Many  people  give  many  theories  of  literary 
composition,"  says  the  most  natural  and  stimula 
ting  of  English  critics,  "  and  Dr.  Blair,  whom  we 
will  read,  is  sometimes  said  to  have  exhausted  the 
subject;  but,  unless  he  has  proved  the  contrary, 
we  believe  that  the  knack  in  style  is  to  write  like  a 
human  being.  Some  think  they  must  be  wise, 
some  elaborate,  some  concise ;  Tacitus  wrote  like  a 
pair  of  stays ;  some  startle  us,  as  Thomas  Carlyle, 
or  a  comet,  inscribing  with  his  tail.  But  legibility 
is  given  to  those  who  neglect  these  notions,  and  are 
willing  to  be  themselves,  to  write  their  own  thoughts 
in  their  own  words,  in  the  simplest  words,  in  the 
words  wherein  they  were  thought.  .  .  .  Books  are 
for  various  purposes,  —  tracts  to  teach,  almanacs  to 
sell,  poetry  to  make  pastry  ;  but  this  is  the  rarest  sort 
of  a  book,  —  a  book  to  read.  As  Dr.  Johnson 


48  THE  AUTHOE  HIMSELF. 

said,  '  Sir,  a  good  book  is  one  you  can  hold  in  your 
hand,  and  take  to  the  fire.'  Now  there  are  ex 
tremely  few  books  which  can,  with  any  propriety, 
be  so  treated.  When  a  great  author,  as  Grote  or 
Gibbon,  has  devoted  a  whole  life  of  horrid  industry 
to  the  composition  of  a  large  history,  one  feels  one 
ought  not  to  touch  it  with  a  mere  hand,  —  it  is  not 
respectful.  The  idea  of  slavery  hovers  over  the 
Decline  and  Fall.  Fancy  a  stiffly  dressed  gentleman, 
in  a  stiff  chair,  slowly  writing  that  stiff  compilation 
in  a  stiff  hand ;  it  is  enough  to  stiffen  you  for  life." 
It  is  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  we  might  learn  to 
prepare  the  best  soils  for  mind,  the  best  associa 
tions  and  companionships,  the  least  possible  sophis 
tication.  We  are  busy  enough  nowadays  finding 
out  the  best  ways  of  fertilizing  and  stimulating 
mind ;  but  that  is  not  quite  the  same  thing  as  dis 
covering  the  best  soils  for  it,  and  the  best  atmo 
spheres.  Our  culture  is,  by  erroneous  preference, 
v  of  the  reasoning  faculty,  as  if  that  were  all  of  us. 
Is  it  not  the  instinctive  discontent  of  readers  seek 
ing  stimulating  contact  with  authors  that  has  given 
us  the  present  almost  passionately  spoken  dissent 
from  the  standards  set  themselves  by  the  realists  in 
fiction,  dissatisfaction  with  mere  recording  or  ob 
servation  ?  And  is  not  realism  working  out  upon 
itself  the  revenge  its  enemies  would  fain  compass  ? 


THE  AUTHOR  HIMSELF.  49 

Must  not  all  April  Hopes  exclude  from  their  num 
ber  the  hope  of  immortality? 

The  rule  for  every  man  is,  not  to  depend  on  the 
education  which  other  men  prepare  for  him,  —  not 
even  to  consent  to  it ;  but  to  strive  to  see  things  as 
they  are,  and  to  be  himself  as  he  is.  Defeat  lies 
in  self-surrender. 


III. 

ON  AN  AUTHOR'S  CHOICE  OF  COMPANY. 

ONCE  and  again,  it  would  seem,  a  man  is  born  into 
the  world  belated.  Strayed  out  of  a  past  age,  he 
comes  among  us  like  an  alien,  lives  removed  and 
singular,  and  dies  a  stranger.  There  was  a  touch 
of  this  strangeness  in  Charles  Lamb.  Much  as  he 
was  loved  and  befriended,  he  was  not  much  under 
stood  ;  for  he  drew  aloof  in  his  studies,  affected 
a  "  self -pleasing  quaintness  "  in  his  style,  took  no 
pains  to  hit  the  taste  of  his  day,  wandered  at  sweet 
liberty  in  an  age  which  could  scarcely  have  bred 
such  another.  "  Hang  the  age  !  "  he  cried.  "  I 
will  write  for  antiquity."  And  he  did.  He  wrote 
as  if  it  were  still  Shakespeare's  day ;  made  the 
authors  of  that  spacious  time  his  constant  compan 
ions  and  study;  and  deliberately  became  himself 
"  the  last  of  the  Elizabethans."  When  a  new  book 
came  out,  he  said,  he  always  read  an  old  one. 

The  case  ought,  surely,  to  put  us  occasionally 
upon  reflecting.  May  an  author  not,  in  some  de 
gree,  by  choosing  his  literary  company,  choose  also 
his  literary  character,  and  so,  when  he  comes  to 


AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY.  51 

write,  write  himself  back  to  his  masters  ?  May  he 
not,  by  examining  his  own  tastes  and  yielding  him 
self  obedient  to  his  natural  affinities,  join  what  con 
genial  group  of  writers  he  will?  The  question  can 
be  argued  very  strongly  in  the  affirmative,  and 
that  not  alone  because  of  Charles  Lamb's  case.  It 
might  be  said  that  Lamb  was  antique  only  in  the 
forms  of  his  speech ;  that  he  managed  very  clev 
erly  to  hit  ohe  taste  of  his  age  in  the  substance  of 
what  he  wrote,  for  all  the  phraseology  had  so  strong 
a  flavor  of  quaintness  and  was  not  at  all  in  the 
mode  of  the  day.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  prove 
that ;  but  it  really  does  not  matter.  In  his  tastes, 
certainly,  Lamb  was  an  old  author,  not  a  new  one  ; 
a  "  modern  antique,"  as  Hood  called  him.  He 
wrote  for  his  own  age,  of  course,  because  there  was 
no  other  age  at  hand  to  write  for,  and  the  age  he 
liked  best  was  past  and  gone ;  but  he  wrote  what 
he  fancied  the  great  generations  gone  by  would 
have  liked,  and  what,  as  it  has  turned  out  in  the 
generosity  of  fortune,  subsequent  ages  have  warmly 
loved  and  reverently  canonized  him  for  writing ;  as 
if  there  were  a  casual  taste  that  belongs  to  a  day  and 
generation,  and  also  a  permanent  taste  which  is 
without  date,  and  he  had  hit  the  latter. 

GTeat^authorsare  nojt_o£ten-  men—  of-  fashion. 
Fashion  is  alw^^_a_harnejs.._ajidjcesteaint,  whether 


52  AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY. 

it  be  fashion  in  dress  or  fashion  in  vice  or  fashion 
in  literary  art ;  agjlja^jnan  who  is  bound  by  itJs 
caught  and  formedjn^a  fleptingjnode.  The  great 
writers  are  always  innovators ;  forjthey  are  always 
frank,  natural,  and  dowAright.  and  frankness  and 
naturalness  always  disturb^when  they  do  not  wholly 
break  down,  the  fixed  and  complacent  order  of 
fashion.  No  genuine  man  can  be  deliberately  in 
the  fashion,  indeed,  in  what  he  says,  if  he  have  any 
movement  of  thought  or  individuality  in  him.  He 
remembers  what  Aristotle  says,  or  if  he  does  not, 
his  own  pride  and  manliness  fill  him  with  the 
thought  instead.  The  very  same  action  that  is 
noble  if  done  for  the  satisfaction  of  one's  own  sense 
of  right  or  purpose  of  self-development,  said  the 
Stagirite,  may,  if  done  to  satisfy  others,  become 
menial  and  slavish.  "It  is  the  object  of  any  action 
or  study  that  is  all-important,"  and  if  the  author's 
chief  object  be  to  please  he  is  condemned  already. 
The  true  spirit^  of^jaithorship  is -a. -spirit  of  liberty 
which  scorns  the  slave's  trick  of  imitation.  It  is  a 
masterful  spirit  of  conquest  within  the  sphere  of 
ideas  and  of  artistic  form,  —  an  impulse  of  empire 
and  origination. 

Of  course  a  man  may  choose,  if  he  will,  to  be 
less  than  a  free  author.  He  may  become  a  reporter ; 
for  there  is  such  a  thing  as  reporting  for  books  as 


AN  AUTHOR'S   COMPANY.  53 

well  as  reporting  for  newspapers,  and  there  have 
been  reporters  so  amazingly  clever  that  their  very 
aptness  and  wit  constitute  them  a  sort  of  immor 
tals.  You  have  proof  of  this  in  Horace  Walpole, 
at  whose  hands  gossip  and  compliment  receive  a 
sort  of  apotheosis.  Such  men  hold  the  secret  of 
a  kind  of  alchemy  by  which  things  trivial  and  tem 
porary  may  be  transmuted  into  literature.  But 
they  are  only  inspired  reporters,  after  all;  and 
while  a  man  was  wishing,  he  might  wish  to  be  more, 
and  climb  to  better  company. 

Every  man  must,  of  course,  whether  he  will  or 
not,  feel  the  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives  and 
thinks  and  does  his  work ;  and  the  mere  contact 
will  direct  and  form  him  more  or  less.  But  tojwish 
to  serve  the  spirit  of  the  age  at  any  sacrifice_of  in 
dividual  naturalness  or  conviction,  however^ small, 
is  to  harbor  the  germ  of  a  destroying  disease. 
Every  man  who  writes  ought  to  write  for.  immor 
tality,  even  though  he  be  of  the  multitude  that  die 
at  their  graves ;  and  the  standards  of  immortality 
are  of  no  single  age.  There  are  many  qualities 
and  causes  that  give  permanency  to  a  book,  but 
universal  vogue  during  the  author's  lifetime  is  not 
one  of  them.  Many  authors  now  immortal  have 
enjoyed  the  applause:  of  their  own  generations; 
many  authors  now  universally  admired  will,  let  us 


54  AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY. 

hope,  pass  on  to  an  easy  immortality.  The  praise 
of  your  own  day  is  no  absolute  disqualification ; 
but  it  may  be  if  it  be  given  for  qualities  which 
your  friends  are  the  first  to  admire,  for  't  is  likely 
they  will  also  be  the  last.  There  is  a  greater 
thing^than  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and~tKatris the 
spirit  of  the  ages:  ffis  present~hT~your"own  day ; 
it~Ts  even  dominant  then,  with  a  sort  of  accumu 
lated  power  and  mastery.  If  you  can  strike  it, 
you  will  strike,  as  it  were,  into  the  upper  air  of 
your  own  time,  where  the  forces  are  which  run 
from  age  to  age.  Lower  down,  where  you  breathe, 
is  the  more  inconstant  air  of  opinion,  inhaled,  ex 
haled,  from  day  to  day,  —  the  variant  currents,  the 
forces  that  will  carry  you,  not  forward,  but  hither 
and  thither. 

We  write  nowadays  a  great  deal  with  our  eyes 
circumspectly  upon  the  tastes  of  our  neighbors,  but 
very  little  with  our  attention  bent  upon  our  own 
natural,  self-speaking  thoughts  and  the  very  truth 
of  the  matter  whereof  we  are  discoursing.  Now 
and  again,  it  is  true,  we  are  startled  to  find  how 
the  age  relishes  still  an  old-fashioned  romance,  if 
written  with  a  new-fashioned  vigor  and  directness  ; 
how  quaint  and  simple  and  lovely  things,  as  well 
as  what  is  altogether  modern  and  analytic  and 
painful,  bring  our  most  judicious  friends  crowding, 


AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY.  55 

purses  in  hand,  to  the  book-stalls ;  and  for  a  while 
we  are  puzzled  to  see  worn-out  styles  and  past 
modes  revived.  But  we  do  not  let  these  things 
seriously  disturb  our  study  of  prevailing  fashions. 
These  books  of  adventure  are  not  at  all,  we  assure 
ourselves,  in  the  true  spirit  of  the  age,  with  its 
realistic  knowledge  of  what  men  really  do  think 
and  purpose,  and  the  taste  for  them  must  be  only 
for  the  moment  or  in  jest.  We  need  not  let  our 
surprise  at  occasional  flurries  and  variations  in  the 
literary  market  cloud  or  discredit  our  analysis  of 
the  real  taste  of  the  day,  or  suffer  ourselves  to  be 
betrayed  into  writing  romances,  however  much  we 
might  rejoice  to  be  delivered  from  the  drudgery  of 
sociological  study,  and  made  free  to  go  afield  with 
our  imaginations  upon  a  joyous  search  for  hidden 
treasure  or  knightly  adventure. 

And  yet  it  is  quite  likely,  after  all,  that  the 
present  age  is  transient.  Past  ages  have  been.  It 
is  probable  that  the  objects  and  interests  now  so 
near  us,  looming  dominant  in  all  the  foreground 
of  our  day,  will  sometime  be  shifted  and  lose  their 
place  in  the  perspective.  That  has  happened  with 
the  near  objects  and  exaggerated  interests  of  other 
days,  so  violently  sometimes  as  to  submerge  and 
thrust  out  of  sight  whole  libraries  of  books.  It 
will  not  do  to  reckon  upon  the  persistence  of  new 


56  AN  AUTHOR'S   COMPANY. 

things.  'T  were  best  to  give  them  time  to  make 
trial  of  the  seasons.  The,  old  things  of  art  and 
taste  and  thought  are  the  permanent  things.  We 
know  that  they  are  because  they  have  lasted  long 
enough  to  grow  old ;  and  we  deem  it  safe  to  assess 
the  spirit  of  the  age  by  the  same  test.  No  age 
adds  a  great  deal  to  what  it  received  from  the  age 
that  went  before  it;  no  time  gets  an  air  all  its 
own.  The  same  atmosphere  holds  from  age  to  age ; 
it  is  only  the  little  movements  of  the  air  that  are 
new.  In  the  intervals  when  the  trades  do  not 
blow,  fleeting  cross-winds  venture  abroad,  the  which 
if  a  man  wait  for  he  may  lose  his  voyage. 

No  man  who  has  anything  to  say  need  stop  and 
bethink  himself  whom  he  may  please  or  displease 
in  the  saying  of  it.  He  has  but  one  day  to  write 
in,  and  that  is  his  own.  He  need  not  fear  that  he 
will  too  much  ignore  it.  He  will  address  the  men 
he  knows  when  he  writes,  whether  he  be  conscious 
of  it  or  not ;  he  may  dismiss  all  fear  on  that  score 
and  use  his  liberty  to  the  utmost.  There  are  some 
things  that  can  have  no  antiquity  and  must  ever  be 
without  date,  and  genuineness  and  spirit  are  of 
their  number.  A  man  who  has  these  must  ever 
be  "  timely,"  and  at  the  same  time  fit  to  last,  if  he 
can  get  his  qualities  into  what  he  writes.  He  may 
freely  read,  too,  what  he  will  that  is  congenial,  and 


AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY.  57 

form  himself  by  companionships  that  are  chosen 
simply  because  they  are  to  his  taste  ;  that  is,  if  he 
be  genuine  and  in  very  truth  a  man  of  independent 
spirit.  Lamb  would  have  written  "  for  antiquity  " 
with  a  vengeance  had  his  taste  for  the  quaint 
writers  of  an  elder  day  been  an  affectation,  or 
the  authors  he  liked  men  themselves  affected  and 
ephemeral.  No  age  this  side  antiquity  would  ever 
have  vouchsafed  him  a  glance  or  a  thought.  But 
it  was  not  an  affectation,  and  the  men  he  pre 
ferred  were  as  genuine  and  as  spirited  as  he  was. 
He  was  simply  obeying  an  affinity  and  taking 
cheer  after  his  own  kind.  A  man  born  into  the 
real  patriciate  of  letters  may  take  his  pleasure  in 
what  company  he  will  without  taint  or  loss  of 
caste ;  may  go  confidently  abroad  in  the  free 
world  of  books  and  choose  his  comradeships  with 
out  fear  of  offense. 

More  than  that,  there  is  no  other  way  in  which 
he  can  form  himself,  if  he  would  have  his  power 
transcend  a  single  age.  He  belittles  himself  who 
takes  from  the  world  no  more  than  he  can  get 
from  the  speech  of  his  own  generation*  The  only 
advantage  of  books  over  speech  is  that  they  may 
hold  from  generation  to  generation,  and  reach,  not 
a  small  group  merely,  but  a  multitude  of  men  ; 
and  a  man  who  writes  without  being  a  man  of 


58  AN  AUTHORS  COMPANY. 

letters  is  curtailed  of  his  heritage.  It  is  in  this 
world  of  old  and  new  that  he  must  form  himself  if 
he  would  in  the  end  belong  to  it  and  increase  its 
bulk  of  treasure.  If  he  has  conned  the  new  theo 
ries  of  society,  but  knows  nothing  of  Burke ;  the 
new  notions  about  fiction,  and  has  not  read  his 
Scott  and  his  Eichardson  ;  the  new  criminology, 
and  wots  nothing  of  the  old  human  nature  ;  the  new 
religions,  and  has  never  felt  the  power  and  sanc 
tity  of  the  old,  it  is  much  the  same  as  if  he  had 
read  Ibsen  and  Maeterlinck,  and  had  never  opened 
Shakespeare.  How  is  he  to  know  wholesome  air 
from  foul,  good  company  from  bad,  visions  from 
nightmares  ?  He  has  framed  himself  for  the  great 
art  and  handicraft  of  letters  only  when  he  has 
taken  all  the  human  parts  of  literature  as  if  they 
were  without  date,  and  schooled  himself  in  a  cath- 
^olic  sanity  of  taste  and  judgment. 

Then  he  may  very  safely  choose  what  company 
his  own  work  shall  be  done  in,  —  in  what  manner, 
and  under  what  masters.  He  cannot  choose  amiss 
for  himself  or  for  his  generation  if  he  choose  like  a 
man,  without  light  whim  or  weak  affectation  ;  not 
like  one  who  chooses  a  costume,  but  like  one  who 
chooses  a  character.  What  is  it,  let  him  ask  him 
self,  that  renders  a  bit  of  writing  a  "  piece  of 
literature  "  ?  It  is  reality.  A  "  wood-note  wild," 


AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY.  59 

sung  unpremeditated  and  out  of  the  heart ;  a  de 
scription  written  as  if  with  an  undimmed  and 
seeing  eye  upon  the  very  object  described;  an 
exposition  that  lays  bare  the  very  soul  of  the 
matter  ;  a  motive  truly  ""revealed  ;  singer  that_  is 
righteous  and  justly  spoken ;  mirth  that  has  its 
sources  pure ;  phrases_to  find  the  heart  of  a  thing, 
and  a  heart  seen  in_fchmgs_for~SEe  phrases  to  find ; 
an  unaffected  meaning  set  out  in  language  that  is 
its  own,  —  such  are  the  realities  of  literature. 
Nothing  else  is  of  the  kin.  Phrases  used  for  their 
own  sake ;  borrowed  meanings  which  the  borrower 
does  not  truly  care  for ;  an  affected  manner ;  an 
acquired  style  ;  a  hollow  reason  ;  words  that  are 
not  fit  ;  things  which  do  not  live  when  spoken,  — 
these  are  its  falsities,  which  die  in  the  handling. 

The  very  top  breed  of  what  is  unreal  is  begot 
ten  by  imitation.  Imitators  succeed  sometimes, 
and  flourish,  even  while  a  breath  may  last ;  but 
"  imitate  and  be  damned "  is  the  inexorable 
threat  and  prophecy  of  fate  with  regard  to  the 
permanent  fortunes  of  literature.  That  has  been 
notorious  this  long  time  past.  It  is  more  worth 
noting,  lest  some  should  not  have  observed  it,  that 
there  are  other  and  subtler  ways  of  producing 
what  is  unreal.  There  are  the  mixed  kinds  of 
writing,  for  example.  Argument  is  real  if  it  come 


60  AN  AUTHOR'S   COMPANY. 

vital  from  the  mind ;  narrative  is  real  if  the  thing 
told  have  life  and  the  narrator  unaffectedly  see  it 
while  he  speaks ;  but  to  narrate  and  argue  in  the 
same  breath  is  naught.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
familiar  example  of  the  early  history  of  Rome. 
Make  up  your  mind  what  was  the  truth  of  the 
matter,  and  then,  out  of  the  facts  as  you  have  disen 
tangled  them,  construct  a  firmly  touched  narrative, 
and  the  thing  you  create  is  real,  has  the  confidence 
and  consistency  of  life.  But  mix  the  narrative 
with  critical  comment  upon  other  writers  and  their 
variant  versions  of  the  tale,  show  by  a  nice  elabo 
ration  of  argument  the  whole  conjectural  basis  of 
the  story,  set  your  reader  the  double  task  of  doubt 
ing  and  accepting,  rejecting  and  constructing,  and 
at  once  you  have  touched  the  whole  matter  with 
unreality.  The  narrative  by  itself  might  have  had 
an  objective  validity ;  the  argument  by  itself  an 
intellectual  firmness,  sagacity,  vigor,  that  would 
have  sufficed  to  make  and  keep  it  potent ;  but 
together  they  confound  each  other,  destroy  each 
other's  atmosphere,  make  a  double  miscarriage. 
The  story  is  rendered  unlikely,  and  the  argument 
obscure.  This  is  the  taint  which  has  touched  all 
our  recent  historical  writing.  The  critical  discus 
sion  and  assessment  of  the  sources  of  information, 
which  used  to  be  a  thing  for  the  private  mind  of 


AN  AUTHOR'S   COMPANY.  61 

the  writer,  now  so  encroach  upon  the  open  text 
that  the  story,  for  the  sake  of  which  we  would  be 
lieve  the  whole  thing  was  undertaken,  is  often-  v 
times  fain  to  sink  away  into  the  foot-notes.  The 
process  has  ceased  to  be  either  pure  exegesis  or 
straightforward  narrative,  and  history  has  ceased 
to  be  literature. 

Nor  is  this  our  only  sort  of  mixed  writing. 
Our  novels  have  become  sociological  studies,  our 
poems  vehicles  of  criticism,  our  sermons  political 
manifestos.  We  have  confounded  all  processes  in 
a  common  use,  and  do  not  know  what  we  would  be 
at.  We  can  find  no  better  use  for  Pegasus  than 
to  carry  our  vulgar  burdens,  no  higher  key  for 
song  than  questionings  and  complainings.  Fancy 
pulls  in  harness  with  intellectual  doubt;  enthusi 
asm  walks  apologetically  alongside  science.  We 
try  to  make  our  very  dreams  engines  of  social  re 
form.  It  is  a  parlous  state  of  things  for  literature, 
and  it  is  high  time  authors  should  take  heed  what  j 
company  they  keep.  The  trouble  is,  they  all  want 
to  be  "  in  society,"  overwhelmed  with  invitations 
from  the  publishers,  well  known  and  talked  about 
at  the  clubs,  named  every  day  in  the  newspapers, 
photographed  for  the  news-stalls  ;  and  it  is  so  hard 
to  distinguish  between  fashion  and  form,  costume 
and  substance,  convention  and  truth,  the  things 


62  AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY. 

that  show  well  and  the  things  that  last  well;  so 
hard  to  draw  away  from  the  writers  that  are  new 
and  talked  about  and  note  those  who  are  old  and 
walk  apart,  to  distinguish  the  tones  which  are 
merely  loud  from  the  tones  that  are  genuine,  to 
get  far  enough  away  from  the  press  and  the  hub 
bub  to  see  and  judge  the  movements  of  the  crowd  ! 
Some  will  do  it.  Choice  spirits  will  arjaa^and 
make  conquest  of  us.  not  "in  society,"  but  with 
what  will  seem  a  sort  of  outlawry.  The  great 
growths  of  literature  spring  up  in  the  open,  where 
the  air  is  free  and  they  can  be  a  law  unto  them 
selves.  The  law  of  life,  here  as  elsewhere,  is  the 
law  of  nourishment:  with  what  was  the  earth 
laden,  and  the  atmosphere  ?  Literatures  are  re 
newed,  as  they  are  originated,  by  uncontrived  im 
pulses  of  nature,  as  if  the  sap  moved  unbidden  in 
the  mind.  Once  conceive  the  matter  so,  and 
Lamb's  quaint  saying  assumes  a  sort  of  gentle 
majesty.  A  man  should  "  write  for  antiquity"  as 
a  tree  grows  into  the  ancient  air,  —  this  old  air 
that  has  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  world  ever 
since  the  day  of  creation,  which  has  set  the  law  of 
life  to  all  things,  which  has  nurtured  the  forests 
and  won  the  flowers  to  their  perfection,  which  has 
fed  men's  lungs  with  life,  sped  their  craft  upon  the 
seas,  borne  abroad  their  songs  and  their  cries, 


AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY.  63 

blown  their  forges  to  flame,  and  buoyed  up  what 
ever  they  have  contrived.  'T  is  a  common  medium, 
though  a  various  life ;  and  the  figure  may  serve 
the  author  for  instruction. 

The  breeding  of  authors  is  no  doubt  a  very 
occult  thing,  and  no  man  can  set  the  rules  of  it ; 
but  at  least  the  sort  of  "  ampler  ether  "  in  which 
they  are  best  brought  to  maturity  is  known.  Writ 
ers  have  liked  to  speak  of  the  Republic  of  Letters, 
as  if  to  mark  their  freedom  and  equality ;  but 
there  is  a  better  phrase,  namely,  the  Community 
of  Letters ;  for  that  means  intercourse  and  com 
radeship  and  a  life  in  common.  Some  take  up 
their  abode  in  it  as  if  they  had  made  no  search  for 
a  place  to  dwell  in,  but  had  come  into  the  freedom 
of  it  by  blood  and  birthright.  Others  buy  the 
freedom  with  a  great  price,  and  seek  out  all  the 
sights  and  privileges  of  the  place  with  an  eager 
thoroughness  and  curiosity.  Still  others  win  their 
way  into  it  with  a  certain  grace  and  aptitude,  next 
best  to  the  ease  and  dignity  of  being  born  to  the 
right.  But  for  all  it  is  a  bonny  place  to  be.  Its 
comradeships  are  a  liberal  education.  Some,  in 
deed,  even  there,  live  apart ;  but  most  run  always 
in  the  market-place  to  know  what  all  the  rest  have 
said.  Some  keep  special  company,  while  others 
keep  none  at  all.  But  all  feel  the  atmosphere  and 
life  of  the  place  in  their  several  degrees. 


64  AN  AUTHOR'S   COMPANY. 

No  doubt  there  are  national  groups,  and  Shake 
speare  is  king  among  the  English,  as  Homer  is 
among  the  Greeks,  and  sober  Dante  among  his 
gay  countrymen.  But  their  thoughts  all  have  in 
common,  though  speech  divide  them ;  and  sov 
ereignty  does  not  exclude  comradeship  or  embarrass 
freedom.  No  doubt  there  is  many  a  willful,  un- 
governed  fellow  endured  there  without  question, 
and  many  a  churlish  cynic,  because  he  possesses 
that  patent  of  genuineness  or  of  a  wit  which 
strikes  for  the  heart  of  things,  which,  without 
further  test,  secures  citizenship  in  that  free  com 
pany.  What  a  gift  of  tongues  is  there,  and  of 
prophecy !  What  strains  of  good  talk,  what  coun 
sel  of  good  judgment,  what  cheer  of  good  tales, 
what  sanctity  of  silent  thought!  The  sight-seers 
who  pass  through  from  day  to  day,  the  press  of 
voluble  men  at  the  gates,  the  affectation  of  citizen 
ship  by  mere  sojourners,  the  folly  of  those  who 
bring  new  styles  or  affect  old  ones,  the  procession 
of  the  generations,  disturb  the  calm  of  that  serene 
community  not  a  whit.  They  will  entertain  a 
man  a  whole  decade,  if  he  happen  to  stay  so  long, 
though  they  know  all  the  while  he  can  have  no 
permanent  place  among  them. 

'T  would  be  a  vast  gain  to  have  the  laws  of  that 
community  better  known  than  they  are.  Even  the 


AN  AUTHOR'S    COMPANY.  65 

first  principles  of  its  constitution  are  singularly 
unfamiliar.  It  is  not  a  community  of  writers,  but 
a  community  of  letters.  One  gets  admission,  not 
because  he  writes,  — write  he  never  so  cleverly,  like 
a  gentleman  and  a  man  of  wit,  —  but  because  he  is 
literate,  a  true  initiate  into  the  secret  craft  and 
mystery  of  letters.  What  that  secret  is  a  man 
may  know,  even  though  he  cannot  practice  or  ap 
propriate  it.  If  a  man  can  see  the  permanent  ele 
ment  in  things,  —  the  true  sources  of  laughter,  the 
real  fountains  of  tears,  the  motives  that  strike 
along  the  main  lines  of  conduct,  the  acts  which  dis 
play  the  veritable  characters  of  men,  the  trifles  that 
are  significant,  the  details  that  make  the  mass,  - 
if  he  know  these  things,  and  can  also  choose  words 
with  a  like  knowledge  of  their  power  to  illuminate 
and  reveal,  give  color  to  the  eye  and  passion  to  the 
thought,  the  secret  is  his,  and  an  entrance  to  that 
immortal  communion. 

It  may  be  that  some  learn  the  mystery  of  that 
insight  without  tutors ;  but  most  must  put  them 
selves  under  governors  and  earn  their  initiation. 
While  a  man  lives,  at  any  rate,  he  can  keep  the 
company  of  the  masters  whose  words  contain  the 
mystery  and  open  it  to  those  who  can  see,  almost 
with  every  accent ;  and  in  such  company  it  may  at 
last  be  revealed  to  him,  —  so  plainly  that  he  may, 


66  AN  AUTHOR'S    COMPANY. 

if  he  will,  still  linger  in  such  comradeship  when  he 
is  dead. 

It  would  seem  that  there  are  two  tests  which 
admit  to  that  company,  and  that  they  are  conclu 
sive.  The  one  is,  Are  you  individual  ?  the  other, 
Are  you  conversable?  "I  beg  pardon,"  said  a 
grave  wag,  coming  face  to  face  with  a  small  per 
son  of  most  consequential  air,  and  putting  glass  to 
eye  in  calm  scrutiny  —  "I  beg  pardon ;  but  are  you 
anybody  in  particular  ?  "  Such  is  very  much  the 
form  of  initiation  into  the  permanent  communion 
of  the  realm  of  letters.  Tell  them,  No,  but  that 
you  have  done  much  better  —  you  have  caught  the 
tone  of  a  great  age,  studied  taste,  divined  oppor 
tunity,  courted  and  won  a  vast  public,  been  most 
timely  and  most  famous ;  and  you  shall  be  pained 
to  find  them  laughing  in  your  face.  Tell  them  you 
are  earnest,  sincere,  consecrate  to  a  cause,  an 
apostle  and  reformer,  and  they  will  still  ask  you, 
"  But  are  you  anybody  in  particular  ?  "  They  will 
mean,  "  Were  you  your  own  man  in  what  you 
thought,  and  not  a  puppet  ?  Did  you  speak  with 
an  individual  note  and  distinction  that  marked  you 
able  to  think  as  well  as  to  speak,  —  to  be  yourself 
in  thoughts  and  in  words  also  ?  "  "  Very  well, 
then  ;  you  are  welcome  enough." 

"  That  is,  if  you  be   also  conversable."     It  is 


AN  AUTHOR'S   COMPANY.  67 

plain  enough  what  they  mean  by  that,  too.  They 
mean,  if  you  have  spoken  in  such  speech  and  spirit 
as  can  be  understood  from  age  to  age,  and  not  in 
the  pet  terms  and  separate  spirit  of  a  single  day 
and  generation.  Can  the  old  authors  understand 
you,  that  you  would  associate  with  them?  Will 
men  be  able  to  take  your  meaning  in  the  differing 
days  to  come  ?  Or  is  it  perishable  matter  of  the 
day  that  you  deal  in  —  little  controversies  that 
carry  no  lasting  principle  at  their  heart ;  experi 
mental  theories  of  life  and  science,  put  forth  for 
their  novelty  and  with  no  test  of  their  worth ;  pic 
tures  in  which  fashion  looms  very  large,  but  human 
nature  shows  very  small ;  things  that  please  every 
body,  but  instruct  no  one ;  mere  fancies  that  are 
an  end  in  themselves  ?  Be  you  never  so  clever  an 
artist  in  words  and  in  ideas,  if  they  be  not  the 
words  that  wear  and  mean  the  same  thing,  and 
that  a  thing  intelligible,  from  age  to  age,  the  ideas 
that  shall  hold  valid  and  luminous  in  whatever  day 
or  company,  you  may  clamor  at  the  gate  till  your 
lungs  fail  and  get  never  an  answer. 

For  that  to  what  you  seek  admission  is  a  verita 
ble  "  community."  In  it  you  must  be  able  to  be, 
and  to  remain,  conversable.  How  are  you  to  test 
your  preparation  meanwhile,  unless  you  look  to 
your  comradeships  now  while  yet  it  is  time  to 


68  AN  AUTHOR'S  COMPANY. 

learn  ?  Frequent  the  company  in  which  you  may 
learn  the  speech  and  the  manner  which  are  fit  to 
last.  Take  to  heart  the  admirable  example  you 
shall  see  set  you  there  of  using  speech  and  manner 
to  speak  your  real  thought  and  be  genuinely  and 
simply  yourself. 


ex. 

A* 


IV. 

A    LITERARY    POLITICIAN. 

"  LITERARY  politician  "  is  not  a  label  much  in 
vogue,  and  may  need  first  of  all  a  justification,  lest 
even  the  man  of  whom  I  am  about  to  speak  should 
decline  it  from  his  very  urn.  I  do  not  mean  a 
politician  who  affects  literature ;  who  seems  to  ap 
preciate  the  solemn  moral  purpose  of  Wordsworth's 
Happy  Warrior,  and  yet  is  opposed  to  ballot  re 
form.  Neither  do  I  mean  a  literary  man  who 
affects  politics  ;  who  earns  his  victories  through 
the  publishers,  and  his  defeats  at  the  hands  of  the 
men  who  control  the  primaries.  I  mean  the  man 
who  has  the  genius  to  see  deep  into  affairs,  and  the 
discretion  to  keep  out  of  them,  —  the  man  to  whom, 
by  reason  of  knowledge  and  imagination  and  sym 
pathetic  insight,  governments  and  policies  are  as 
open  books,  but  who,  instead  of  trying  to  put  hap 
hazard  characters  of  his  own  into  those  books, 
wisely  prefers  to  read  their  pages  aloud  to  others. 
A  man  this^whoJtoows  polities,  and  jgt  does  not 
handlepolicies. 


70  A  LITEEAEY   POLITICIAN. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  a  very  widespread  skepticism 
as  to  the  existence  of  such  a  man.  Many  people 
would  ask  you  to  prove  him  as  well  as  define  him ; 
and  that,  as  they  assume,  upon  a  very  obvious 
principle.  It  is  a  rule  of  universal  acceptance  in 
theatrical  circles  that  no  one  can  write  a  good  play 
who  has  no  practical  acquaintance  with  the  stage. 
A  knowledge  of  greenroom  possibilities  and  of 
stage  machinery,  it  is  held,  must  go  before  all  suc 
cessful  attempts  to  put  either  passion  or  humor 
into  action  on  the  boards,  if  pit  and  gallery  are  to 
get  a  sense  of  reality  from  the  performance.  No 
wonder  that  Sheridan's  plays  were  effective,  for 
Sheridan  was  both  author  and  actor;  but  abun 
dant  wonder  that  simple  Goldsmith  succeeded  with 
his  exquisite  "  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,"  -  -  unless 
we  are  to  suppose  that  an  Irishman  of  the  last  cen 
tury,  like  the  Irishman  of  this,  had  some  sixth 
sense  which  enabled  him  to  understand  other  peo 
ple's  business  better  than  his  own ;  for  poor  Gold 
smith  could  not  act  (even  off  the  stage),  and  his 
only  connection  with  the  theatre  seems  to  have  been 
his  acquaintance  with  Garrick.  Lytton,  we  know, 
had  Macready  constantly  at  his  elbow,  to  give  and 
enforce  suggestions  calculated  to  render  plays  play 
able.  And  in  our  own  day,  the  authors  of  what 
we  indulgently  call  "dramatic  literature"  find 


A  LITERARY    POLITICIAN.  71 

themselves  constantly  obliged  to  turn  tragedies  into 
comedies,  comedies  into  farces,  to  satisfy  the  man 
agers  ;  for  managers  know  the  stage,  and  pretend  to 
know  all  possible  audiences  also.     The  writer  for  t'  • 
the  stage  must  be  playwright  first,  author  second. 

Similar  principles  of  criticism  are  not  a  little 
affected  by  those  who  play  the  parts,  great  and  small, 
on  the  stage  of  politics.  There  is  on  that  stage, 
too,  it  is  saici,  a  complex  machinery  of  a^tion.and 
scene-sinking,  a  greenroom  tradition  and  practice 
as  to  costume  and  make-up,  as  to  entry  and  exit, 
necessities  of  concession  to  footlights  and  of  appeal 
to  the  pit,  quite  as  rigorous  and  quite  as  proper  for 
study  as  are  the  concomitants  of  that  other  art 
which  we  frankly  call  acting.  This  is  an  idea, 
indeed,  accepted  in  some  quarters  outside  the  politi 
cal  playhouse  as  well  as  within  it.  Mr.  Sydney 
Colvin,  for  example,  declares  very  rightly  that : 

"  Men  of  letters  and  of  thought  are  habitually 
too  much  given  to  declaiming  at  their  ease  against 
the  delinquencies  of  men  of  action  and  affairs.  The 
inevitable  friction  of  practical  politics,"  he  argues, 
"  generates  heat  enough  already,  and  the  office  of 
the  thinker  and  critic  should  be  to  supply  not  heat, 
but  light.  The  difficulties  which  attend  his  own 
unmolested  task  —  the  task  of  seeking  after  and 
proclaiming  salutary  truths  —  should  teach  him  to 


72  A  LITER AEY  POLITICIAN. 

make  allowance  for  the  far  more  urgent  difficulties 
which  beset  the  politican ;  the  man  obliged,  amidst 
the  clash  of  interests  and  temptations,  to  practice 
from  hand  to  mouth,  and  at  his  peril,  the  most  un 
certain  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  indispensable 
of  the  experimental  arts." 

Mr.  Colvin  is  himself  of  the  class  of  men  of  let 
ters  and  of  thought ;  he  accordingly  puts  the  case 
against  his  class  much  more  mildly  than  the  practi 
cal  politician  would  desire  to  see  it  put.  Practical 
politicians  are  wont  to  regard  closeted  writers  upon 
politics  with  a  certain  condescension,  dashed  with 
slight  traces  of  uneasy  concern.  "  Literary  men 
can  say  strong  things  of  their  age,"  observes  Mr. 
Bagehot,  "  for  no  one  expects  that  they  will  go  out 
and  act  on  them.  They  are  a  kind  of  ticket-of- 
leave  lunatics,  from  whom  no  harm  is  for  the  mo 
ment  expected;  who  seem  quiet,  but  on  whose 
vagaries  a  practical  public  must  have  its  eye." 
I  suppose  that  the  really  serious,  practical  man 
in  politics  would  see  nothing  of  satirical  humor  in 
such  a  description.  He  would  have  you  note  that, 
although  traced  with  a  sharp  point  of  wit,  the  pic 
ture  is  nevertheless  true.  He  can  cite  you  a  score 
of  instances  illustrative  of  the  danger  of  putting 
faith  in  the  political  judgments  of  those  who  are 
not  politicians  bred  in  the  shrewd  and  moving 
world  of  political  management. 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  73 

The  genuine  practical  politician,  such  as  (even 
our  enemies  being  the  witnesses)  we  must  be  ac 
knowledged  to  produce  in  great  numbers  and  per 
fection  in  this  country,  reserves  his  acidest  con 
tempt  for  the  literary  man  who  assumes  to  utter 
judgments  touching  public  affairs  and  political  in 
stitutions.  If  he  be  a  reading  man,  as  will  some 
times  happen,  he  is  able  to  point  you,  in  illustration 
of  what  you  are  to  expect  in  such  cases,  to  the  very 
remarkable  essays  of  the  late  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold 
on  parliamentary  policy  and  the  Irish  question.  If 
he  be  not  a  reading  man,  as  sometimes  happens,  he 
is  able  to  ask,  much  to  your  confusion,  "  What 
does  a  fellow  who  lives  inside  a  library  know  about 
politics,  anyhow  ?  "  You  have  to  admit,  if  you  are 
candid,  that  most  fellows  who  live  in  libraries  know 
little  enough.  You  remember  Macaulay,  and 
acknowledge  that,  although  he  made  admirable 
speeches  in  Parliament,  held  high  political  office, 
and  knew  all  the  considerable  public  men  of  his 
time,  he  did  imagine  the  creation  to  have  been  made 
in  accordance  with  Whig  notions  ;  did  hope  to  find 
the  judgments  of  Lord  Somers  some  day  answer 
ing  mankind  as  standards  for  all  possible  times  and 
circumstances.  You  recall  Gibbon,  and  allow,  to 
your  own  thought  at  least,  that,  had  he  not  remained 
silent  in  his  seat,  a  very  few  of  his  sentences  would 


74  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

probably  have  sufficed  to  freeze  the  House  of  Com 
mons  stiff.  The  ordinary  literary  man,  even  though 
he  be  an  eminent  historian,  is  ill  enough  fitted  to  be 
a  mentor  in  affairs  of  government.  For,  it  must 
be  admitted,  things  are  for  the  most  part  very  sim 
ple  in  books,  and  in  practical  life  very  complex. 
Not  all  the  bindings  of  a  library  inclose  the  various 
world  of  circumstance. 

But  the  practical  politician  should  discrimi 
nate.  Let  him  find  a  man  with  an  imagination 
which,  though  it  stands  aloof,  is  yet  quick  to  con 
ceive  the  very  things  in  the  thick  of  which  the  poli 
tician  struggles.  To  that  man  he  should  resort  for 
instruction.  And  that  there  is  occasionally  such 
a  man  we  have  proof  in  Bagehot,  the  man  who 
first  clearly  distinguished  the  facts  of  the  English 
constitution  from  its  theory. 

Walter  Bagehot  is  a  name  known  to  not  a  few 
of  those  who  have  a  zest  for  the  juiciest  things  of 
literature,  for  the  wit  that  illuminates  and  the 
knowledge  that  refreshes.  But  his  fame  is  still 
singularly  disproportioned  to  his  charm ;  and  one 
feels  once  and  again  like  publishing  him,  at  least 
to  all  spirits  of  his  own  kind.  It  would  be  a  most 
agreeable  good  fortune  to  introduce  Bagehot  to  men 
who  have  not  read  him !  To  ask  your  friend  to 
know  Bagehot  is  like  inviting  him  to  seek  pleasure. 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  75 

O cca^ionallyjj^rna/n   is.,  horn   intn  tbp  world  whose 
mission   i1^videjrt^Lis_^ 

hisL  generation,  and  to  vivify  it ;  to  give  it  speed 
where  it  is  slow,  vision  where  it  is  blind,  balance 
where  it  is  out  of  poise,  saving  humor  where  it  is 
dry,—-  and  such  a  man  was  Walter  Bagehot. 
"When  he  wrote  of  history,  he  made  it  seem  human 
and  probable  ;  when  he  wrote  of  political  economy, 
he  made  it  seem  credible,  entertaining,  —  nay,  en 
gaging  even  ;  when  he  wrote  criticism,  he  wrote 
sense.  You  have  in  him  a  man  who  can  jest  to 
your  instruction,  who  will  beguile  you  into  being 
informed  beyond  your  wont  and  wise  beyond  your 
birthright.  Full  of  manly,  straightforward  mean 
ing,  earnest  to  find  the  facts  that  guide  and 
strengthen  conduct,  a  lover  of  good  men  and  seers, 
full  of  knowledge  and  a  consuming  desire  for  it, 
he  is  yet  genial  withal,  with  the  geniality  of  a  man 
of  wit,  and  alive  in  every  fibre  of  him,  with  a  life 
he  can  communicate  to  you.  One  is  constrained  to 
agree,  almost,  with  the  verdict  of  a  witty  country 
man  of  his,  who  happily  still  lives  to  cheer  us,  that 
when  Bagehot  died  he  "  carried  away  into  the  next 
world  more  originality  of  thought  than  is  now  to 
be  found  in  the  three  Estates  of  the  Kealm." 

An  epitome  of  Bagehot 's  life  can  be  given  very 
briefly.     He  was   born  in   February,   1826,    and 


76  A  LITER AEY  POLITICIAN. 

died  in  March,  1877,  —  the  month  in  which  one 
would  prefer  to  die.  Between  those  two  dates  he  had 
much  quaint  experience  as  a  boy,  and  much  sober 
business  experience  as  a  man.  He  wrote  essays 
on  poets,  prose  writers,  statesmen,  whom  he  would, 
with  abundant  insight,  but  without  too  much  re 
spect  of  persons ;  also  books  on  banking,  on  the 
early  development  of  society,  and  on  English  poli 
tics,  kindling  a  flame  of  interest  with  these  dry 
materials  such  as  made  men  stare  who  had  often  de 
scribed  the  facts  of  society  themselves,  but  who  had 
never  dreamed  of  applying  fire  to  them,  as  Bagehot 
did,  to  make  them  give  forth  light  and  wholesome 
heat.  He  set  the  minds  of  a  few  fortunate  friends 
aglow  with  the  delights  of  the  very  wonderful  tongue 
which  nature  had  given  him  through  his  mother. 
And  then  he  died,  while  his  power  was  yet  young. 
Not  a  life  of  event  or  adventure,  but  a  life  of  deep 
interest,  none  the  less,  because  a  life  in  which  those 
two  things  of  our  modern  life,  commonly  deemed 
incompatible,  business  and  literature,  namely,  were 
combined  without  detriment  to  either;  and  from 
which,  more  interesting  still,  politics  gained  a  pro 
found  expounder  in  one  who  was  no  politician  and 
no  party  man,  but,  as  he  himself  said,  "  between 
sizes  in  politics." 

Mr.  Bagehot  was  born  in  the  centre  of  Somer- 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  77 

setshire,  that  southwestern  county  of  old  England 
whose  coast  towns  look  across  Bristol  Channel  to 
the  highlands  of  Wales :  a  county  of  small  farms, 
and  pastures  that  keep  their  promise  of  fatness  to 
many  generous  milkers  ;  a  county  broken  into  ab 
rupt  hills,  and  sodden  moors  hardly  kept  from  the 
inroads  of  the  sea,  as  well  as  rural  valleys  open  to 
the  sun ;  a  county  visited  by  mists  from  the  sea, 
and  bathed  in  a  fine  soft  atmosphere  all  its  own ; 
visited  also  by  people  of  fashion,  for  it  contains 
Bath ;  visited  now  also  by  those  who  have  read 
Lorna  Doone,  for  within  it  lies  part  of  that  Ex- 
moor  Forest  in  which  stalwart  John  Ridd  lived 
and  wrought  his  mighty  deeds  of  strength  and 
love :  a  land  which  the  Celts  kept  for  long  against 
both  Saxon  and  Roman,  but  which  Christianity 
easily  conquered,  building  Wells  Cathedral  and 
the  monastery  at  Glastonbury.  Nowhere  else,  in 
days  of  travel,  could  Bagehot  find  a  land  of  so 
great  delight  save  in  the  northwest  corner  of  Spain, 
where  a  golden  light  lay  upon  everything,  where 
the  sea  shone  with  a  rare,  soft  lustre,  and  where 
there  was  a  like  varied  coast-line  to  that  he  knew 
and  loved  at  home.  He  called  it  "  a  sort  of  better 
Devonshire :  "  and  Devonshire  is  Somersetshire,  — 
only  more  so !  The  atmospheric  effects  of  his 
county  certainly  entered  the  boy  Bagehot,  and 


78  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

colored  the  nature  of  the  man.  He  had  its 
glow,  its  variety,  its  richness,  and  its  imaginative 
depth. 

But  better  than  a  fair  county  is  a  good  parent 
age,  and  that,  too,  Bagehot  had ;  just  the  parentage 
one  would  wish  to  have  who  desired  to  be  a  force 
in  the  world's  thought.  His  father,  Thomas  Wat 
son  Bagehot,  was  for  thirty  years  managing  director 
and  vice-president  of  Stuckey's  Banking  Company, 
one  of  the  oldest  and  best  of  those  sturdy  joint-stock 
companies  which  have  for  so  many  years  stood 
stoutly  up  alongside  the  Bank  of  England  as 
managers  of  the  vast  English  fortune.  But  he 
was  something  more  than  a  banker.  He  was  a  man 
of  mind,  of  strong  liberal  convictions  in  politics, 
and  of  an  abundant  knowledge  of  English  history 
wherewith  to  back  up  his  opinions.  He  was  one 
of  the  men  who  think,  and  who  think  in  straight 
lines;  who  see,  and  see  things.  His  mother 
was  a  Miss  Stuckey,  a  niece  of  the  founder  of 
the  banking  company.  But  it  was  not  her  con 
nection  with  bankers  that  made  her  an  invaluable 
mother.  She  had,  besides  beauty,  a  most  lively 
and  stimulating  wit ;  such  a  mind  as  we  most  de 
sire  to  see  in  a  woman,  —  a  mind  that  stirs  with 
out  irritating  you,  that  rouses  but  does  not  be 
labor,  amuses  and  yet  subtly  instructs.  She  could 


A  LITER AEY  POLITICIAN.  79 

preside  over  the  young  life  of  her  son  in  such  a  way 
as  at  once  to  awaken  his  curiosity  and  set  him  in 
the  way  of  satisfying  it.  She  was  brilliant  com 
pany  for  a  boy,  and  rewarding  for  a  man.  She 
had  suggestive  people,  besides,  among  her  kinsmen, 
into  whose  companionship  she  could  bring  her  son. 
Bagehot  had  that  for  which  no  university  can  ever 
offer  an  equivalent,  —  the  constant  and  intelligent 
sympathy  of  both  his  parents  in  his  studies,  and 
their  companionship  in  his  tastes.  To  his  father's 
strength  his  mother  added  vivacity.  He  would 
have  been  wise,  perhaps,  without  her ;  but  he  would 
not  have  been  wise  so  delightfully. 

Bagehot  got  his  schooling  in  Bristol,  his  uni 
versity  training  in  London.  In  Bristol  lived  Dr. 
Prichard,  his  mother's  brother-in-law,  and  author 
of  a  notable  book  on  the  Physical  History  of  Men. 
From  him  Bagehot  unquestionably  got  his  bent  to 
wards  the  study  of  race  origins  and  development. 
In  London,  Cobden  and  Bright  were  carrying  on 
an  important  part  of  their  great  agitation  for  the 
repeal  of  the  corn  laws,  and  were  making  such 
speeches  as  it  stirred  and  bettered  young  men  to 
hear.  Bagehot  had  gone  to  University  Hall,  Lon 
don,  rather  than  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  because 
his  father  was  a  Unitarian,  and  would  not  have  his 
son  submit  to  the  religious  tests  then  required  at 


80  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

the  great  universities.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  there  was  more  to  be  had  at  University  Hall 
in  that  day  than  at  either  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  were  still  dragging  the  very 
heavy  chains  of  a  hindering  tradition ;  the  faculty 
of  University  Hall  contained  many  thorough  and 
some  eminent  scholars ;  what  was  more,  University 
Hall  was  in  London,  and  London  itself  was  a 
quickening  and  inspiring  teacher  for  a  lad  in  love 
with  both  books  and  affairs,  as  Bagehot  was.  He 
could  ask  penetrating  questions  of  his  professors, 
and  he  could  also  ask  questions  of  London,  seek 
out  her  secrets  of  history,  and  so  experience  to  the 
full  the  charm  of  her  abounding  life.  In  after 
years,  though  he  loved  Somersetshire  and  clung  to 
it  with  a  strong  home-keeping  affection,  he  could 
never  stay  away  from  London  for  more  than  six 
weeks  at  a  time.  Eventually  he  made  it  his  place 
of  permanent  residence. 

His  university  career  over,  Bagehot  did  what  so 
many  thousands  of  young  graduates  before  him 
had  done,  —  he  studied  for  the  bar;  and  then, 
having  prepared  himself  to  practice  law,  followed 
another  large  body  of  young  men  in  deciding  to 
abandon  it.  He  joined  his  father  in  his  business 
as  ship-owner  and  banker  in  Somersetshire,  and 
in  due  time  took  his  place  among  the  directors  of 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  81 

Stuckey's  Company.  For  the  rest  of  his  life,  this 
man,  whom  the  world  knows  as  a  man  of  letters,  , 
was  first  of  all  a  man  of  business.  In  his  later 
years,  however,  he  identified  himself  with  what  may 
be  called  the  literary  side  of  business  by  becom 
ing  editor  of  that  great  financial  authority,  the 
"London  Economist."  He  had,  so  to  say,  married 
into  this  position.  His  wife  was  the  daughter  of 
the  Et.  Hon.  James  Wilson,  who  was  the  mind 
and  manager,  as  well  as  the  founder  of  the  "  Econo 
mist."  Wilson's  death  seemed  to  leave  the  great 
financial  weekly  by  natural  succession  to  Bagehot ; 
and  certainly  natural  selection  never  made  a  better 
choice.  It  was  under  Bagehot  that  the  "  Econo 
mist"  became  a  sort  of  financial  providence  for 
business  men  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Its 
sagacious  prescience  constituted  Bagehot  himself  a 
sort  of  supplementary  chancellor  of  the  exchequer, 
the  chancellors  of  both  parties  resorting  to  him 
with  equal  confidence  and  solicitude.  His  constant 
contact  with  London,  and  with  the  leaders  of  poli 
tics  and  opinion  there,  of  course  materially  assisted 
him  also  to  those  penetrating  judgments  touching 
the  structure  and  working  of  English  institutions 
which  have  made  his  volume  on  the  English 
Constitution  and  his  essays  on  Bolingbroke  and 
Brougham  and  Peel,  on  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Sir 


82  A  LITER AEY  POLITICIAN. 

George  Cornewall  Lewis,  the  admiration  and  de 
spair  of  all  who  read  them. 

Those  who  know  Bagehot  only  as  the  writer  of 
some  of  the  most  delightful  and  suggestive  literary 
criticisms  in  the  language  wonder  that  he  should 
have  been  an  authority  on  practical  politics  ;  those 
who  used  to  regard  the  "  London  Economist  "  as 
omniscient,  and  who  knew  him  only  as  the  editor 
of  it,  marvel  that  he  dabbled  in  literary  criticism, 
and  incline  to  ask  themselves,  when  they  learn  of 
his  vagaries  in  that  direction,  whether  he  can  have 
been  so  safe  a  guide  as  they  deemed  him,  after  all ; 
those  who  know  him  through  his  political  writings 
alone  venture  upon  the  perusal  of  his  miscellaneous 
essays  with  not  a  little  surprise  and  misgiving  that 
their  master  should  wander  so  far  afield.     And  yet 
the  whole   Bagehot   is   the  only  Bagehot.     Each 
part  of  the  man  is  incomplete,  not  only,  but  a  trifle 
incomprehensible,   also,   without   the    other   parts. 
What   delights  us  most   in   his  literary  essays  is 
their  broad  practical  sagacity,  so  uniquely  married 
as  it  is  with  pure  taste  and  the  style  of  a  rapid 
artist  in  words.     What  makes   his  financial  and 
political  writings  whole  and  sound  is  the  scope  of 
his  mind  outside  finance  and  politics,  the  validity 
of  his  observation  all  around  the  circle  of  thought 
and  affairs.     He  was  the  better  critic  for  being  a 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  83 

competent  man  of  business  and  a  trusted  financial 
authority.  He  was  the  more  sure-footed  in  his 
political  judgments  because  of  his  play  of  mind  in 
other  and  supplementary  spheres  of  human  activity. 
The  very  appearance  of  the  man  was  a  sort  of 
outer  index  to  the  singular  variety  of  capacity  that 
has  made  him  so  notable  a  figure  in  the  literary 
annals  of  England.  A  mass  of  black,  wavy  hair  ; 
a  dark  eye,  with  depths  full  of  slumberous,  playful 
fire  ;  a  ruddy  skin  that  bespoke  active  blood,  quick 
in  its  rounds  ;  the  lithe  figure  of  an  excellent  horse 
man  ;  a  nostril  full,  delicate,  quivering,  like  that  of 
a  blooded  racer,  —  such  were  the  fitting  outward 
marks  of  a  man  in  whom  life  and  thought  and 
fancy  abounded ;  the  aspect  of  a  man  of  unflagging 
vivacity,  of  wholesome,  hearty  humor,  of  a  ready 
intellectual  sympathy,  of  wide  and  penetrative  ob 
servation.  It  is  no  narrow,  logical  shrewdness  or 
cold  penetration  that  looks  forth  at  you  through 
that  face,  even  if  a  bit  of  mockery  does  lurk  in  the 
privatest  corner  of  the  eye.  Among  the  qualities 
which  he ..  seeks  out  for  special  praise  in  Shake 
speare  is  a  broad  tolerance  and  sympathy  for  illog 
ical  and  common  minds.  It  seems  to  him  an  evi* 
dence  of  size  in  Shakespeare  that  he  was  not  vexed 
with  smallness,  but  was  patient,  nay,  sympathetic 
even,  in  his  portrayal  of  it.  "  If  every  one  were 


84  A  LITEEAEY  POLITICIAN. 

logical  and  literary,"  he  exclaims,  "  how  would  there 
be  scavengers,  or  watchmen,  or  caulkers,  or  coopers  ? 
A  patient  sympathy,  a  kindly  fellow-feeling  for  the 
narrow  intelligence  necessarily  induced  by  narrow 
circumstances,  —  a  narrowness  which,  in  some  de 
grees,  seems  to  be  inevitable,  and  is  perhaps  more 
serviceable  than  most  things  to  the  wise  conduct  of 
life,  —  this,  though  quick  and  half-bred  minds  may 
despise  it,  seems  to  be  a  necessary  constituent  in 
the  composition  of  manifold  genius.  4  How  shall 
the  world  be  served  ? '  asks  the  host  in  Chaucer. 
We  must  have  cart-horses  as  well  as  race-horses, 
draymen  as  well  as  poets.  It  is  no  bad  thing,  after 
all,  to  be  a  slow  man  and  to  have  one  idea  a  year. 
You  don't  make  a  figure,  perhaps,  in  argumentative 
society,  which  requires  a  quicker  species  of  thought, 
but  is  that  the  worse  ?  " 

One  of  the  things  which  strike  us  most  in  Bage- 
hot  himself  is  his  capacity  to  understand  inferior 
minds  ;  and  there  can" "be  no  better  test  of  sound 
gemusT  He  stood  in  the  midst  of  affairs,  and  knew 
the  dull  duty  and  humdrum  fidelity  which  make  up 
the  equipment  of  the  ordinary  mind  for  business, 
for  the  business  which  keeps  the  world  steady  in 
its  grooves  and  makes  it  fit  for  habitation.  He 
perceived  quite  calmly,  though  with  an  odd,  sober 
amusement,  that  the  world  is  under  the  dominion, 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  85 

in  most  things,  of  the  average  man,  and  the  aver 
age  man  he  knows.  He  is,  he  explains,  with  his 
characteristic  covert  humor,  "  a  cool,  common  per 
son,  with  a  considerate  air,  with  figures  in  his 
mind,  with  his  own  business  to  attend  to,  with  a 
set  of  ordinary  opinions  arising  from  and  suited  to 
ordinary  life.  He  can't  bear  novelty  or  originali 
ties.  He  says,  4  Sir,  I  never  heard  such  a  thing 
before  in  my  life  ; '  and  he  thinks  this  a  reductio 
ad  absurdum.  You  may  see  his  taste  by  the  read 
ing  of  which  he  approves.  Is  there  a  more  splen 
did  monument  of  talent  and  industry  than  the 
'Times'?  No  wonder  that  the  average  man  — 
that  any  one  —  believes  in  it.  ...  But  did  you  ever 
see  anything  there  you  had  never  seen  before  ?  .  .  . 
Where  are  the  deep  theories,  and  the  wise  axioms, 
and  the  everlasting  sentiments  which  the  writers  of 
the  most  influential  publication  in  the  world  have 
been  the  first  to  communicate  to  an  ignorant  spe 
cies  ?  Such  writers  are  far  too  shrewd.  .  .  .  The 
purchaser  desires  an  article  which  he  can  appreciate 
at  sight,  which  he  can  lay  down  and  say,  'An 
excellent  article,  very  excellent ;  exactly  my  own 
sentiments.'  Original  theories  give  trouble;  be 
sides,  a  grave  man  on  the  Coal  Exchange  does 
not  desire  to  be  an  apostle  of  novelties  among  the 
contemporaneous  dealers  in  fuel ;  he  wants  to  be 


86  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

provided  with  remarks  he  can  make  on  the  topics 
of  the  day  which  will  not  be  known  not  to  be  his, 
that  are  not  too  profound,  which  he  can  fancy  the 
paper  only  reminded  him  of.  And  just  in  the 
same  way,"  -  —  thus  he  proceeds  with  the  sagacious 
moral,  —  "  precisely  as  the  most  popular  political 
paper  is  not  that  which  is  abstractedly  the  best  or 
most  instructive,  but  that  which  most  exactly  takes 
up  the  minds  of  men  where  it  finds  them,  catches 
the  floating  sentiment  of  society,  puts  it  in  such  a 
form  as  society  can  fancy  would  convince  another 

X~""""society  which  did  not  believe,  so  the  most  influen- 

\      tial  of  constitutional  statesmen  is  the  one  who  most 
\    felicitously  expresses  the  creed  of  the  moment,  who 
administers  it,  who  embodies  it  in  laws  and  insti 
tutions,  who  gives  it  the  highest  life  it  is  capable 
/     of,  who  induces  the  average  man  to  think,  '  I  could 

/      not  have  done  it  any  better  if  I  had  had  time  my- 

\      self.' " 

See  how  his  knowledge  of  politics  proceeds  out 
of  his  knowledge  of  men.  "  You  may  talk  of  the 
tyranny  of  Nero  and  Tiberius,"  he  exclaims,  "  but 
the  real  tyranny  is  the  tyranny  of  your  next-door 
neighbor.  What  law  is  so  cruel  as  the  law  of  do 
ing  what  he  does  ?  What  yoke  is  so  galling  as  the 
necessity  of  being  like  him  ?  What  espionage  of 
despotism  comes  to  your  door  so  effectually  as  the 


A  LITEEAEY  POLITICIAN.  87 

eye  of  the  man  who  lives  at  your  door?  Public 
opinion  is  a  permeating  influence,  and  it  exacts 
obedience  to  itself;  it  requires  us  to  think  other 
men's  thoughts,  to  speak  other  men's  words,  to  fol 
low  other  men's  habits.  Of  course,  if  we  do  not, 
no  formal  ban  issues,  no  corporeal  pain,  the  coarse 
penalty  of  a  barbarous  society,  is  inflicted  on  the 
offender,,  but  we  are  called  c  eccentric  ; '  there  is  a 
gentle  murmur  of  '  most  unfortunate  ideas,'  '  singu 
lar  young  man,'  « well  intentioned,  I  dare  say,  but 
unsafe,  sir,  quite  unsafe.'  The  prudent,  of  course, 
conform." 

There  is,  no  doubt,  a  touch  of  mockery  in  all 
this,  but  there  is  unquestionable  insight  in  it,  too, 
and  a  sane  knowledge  also  of  the  fact  that  dull, 
pnTrnrirm^  j^f|gmpintff  ar^  f^\,^  all,  the  cement  of 
""  society.  It  is  Bagehot  who  says  somewhere  that  it 
?  is  only  dull  nations,  like  the  Romans  and  the 
English,  who  can  become  or  remain  for  any  length 
of  time  self-governing  nations,  because  it  is  only 
among  them  that  duty  is^  done  >  through  l^k  °f 
knowledge  sufficient  or  imagination  enough  to  S11ff- 
gest  anythjag^else  to  jo  :  onjy  among  jfcbe.m  that 
the  stability  of  slow  habit  canbe  had. 

It  would  be  superficial  criticism  to  put  forward 
Bagehot's  political  opinions  as  themselves  the  proof 
of  his  extraordinary  power  as  a  student  and  analyst 


88  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

of  institutions.  His  life,  his  broad  range  of  study, 
his  quick  versatility,  his  shrewd  appreciation  of 
common  men,  his  excursions  through  all  the  fields 
that  men  traverse  in  their  thought  of  one  another 
and  in  their  contact  with  the  world's  business,  — 
these  are  the  soil  out  of  which  his  political  judg 
ments  spring,  from  which  they  get  their  sap  and 
bloom.  In  order  to  know  institutions,  you  must 
know  men  ;  you  must  be  able  to  imagine  histories, 
to  appreciate  characters  radically  unlike  your  own, 
to  see  into  the  heart  of  society  and  assess  its 
notions,  great  and  small.  Your  average  critic,  it 
must  be  acknowledged,  would  be  the  worst  possible 
commentator  on  affairs.  He  has  all  the  movements 
of  intelligence  without  any  of  its  reality.  But  a 
man  who  sees  authors  with  a  Chaucerian  insight 
into  them  as  men,  who  knows  literature  as  a  realm 
of  vital  thought  conceived  by  real  men,  of  actual 
motive  felt  by  concrete  persons,  this  is  a  man  whose 
opinions  you  may  confidently  ask,  if  not  on  current 
politics,  at  any  rate  on  all  that  concerns  the  perma 
nent  relations  of  men  in  society. 

It  is  for  such  reasons  that  one  must  first  make 
known  the  most  masterly  of  the  critics  of  English 
political  institutions  as  a  man  of  catholic  tastes  and 
attainments,  shrewdly  observant  of  many  kinds  of 
men  and  affairs.  Know  him  once  in  this  way,  and 


A  LITEEAEY  POLITICIAN.  89 

his  mastery  in  political  thought  is  explained.  If  I 
were  to  make  choice,  therefore,  of  extracts  from 
his  works  with  a  view  to  recommend  him  as  a 
politician,  I  should  choose  those  passages  which 
show  him  a  man  of  infinite  capacity  to  see  and  un 
derstand  men  of  all  kinds,  past  and  present.  By 
showing  in  his  case  the  equipment  of  a  mind  open 
on  all  sides  to  the  life  and  thought  of  society,  and 
penetrative  of  human  secrets  of  many  sorts,  I 
should  authenticate  his  credentials  as  a  writer  upon 
politics,  which  is  nothing  else  than  the  public  and 
organic  life  of  society. 

Examples  may  be  taken  almost  at  random. 
There  is  the  passage  on  Sydney  Smith,  in  the  essay 
on  the  First  Edinburgh  Reviewers.  We  have  all 
laughed  with  that  great-hearted  clerical  wit ;  but 
it  is  questionable  whether  we  have  all  appreciated 
him  as  a  man  who  wrote  and  wrought  wisdom. 
Indeed,  Sydney  Smith  may  be  made  a  very  delicate 
test  of  sound  judgment,  the  which  to  apply  to 
friends  of  whom  you  are  suspicious.  There  was 
a  man  beneath  those  excellent  witticisms,  a  big, 
wholesome,  thinking  man  ;  but  none  save  men  of 
like  wholesome  natures  can  see  and  value  his  man 
hood  and  his  mind  at  their  real  worth. 

"  Sydney  Smith  was  an  after-dinner  writer. 
His  words  have  a  flow,  a  vigor,  an  expression, 


90  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

which  is  not  given  to  hungry  mortals.  .  .  .  There 
is  little  trace  of  labor  in  his   composition ;    it  is 
poured  forth  like  an  unceasing  torrent,  rejoicing 
daily  to  run  its  course.     And  what  courage  there 
is  in    it !     There  is  as  much  variety  of  pluck  in 
writing  across  a  sheet  as  in  riding  across  a  country. 
Cautious  men  ...  go  tremulously,  like   a  timid 
rider ;  they  turn  hither  and  thither ;  they  do  not 
go  straight  across  a  subject,  like  a  masterly  mind. 
A  few  sentences  are  enough  for  a  master  of   sen 
tences.     The  writing  of  Sydney  Smith  is  suited  to 
the  broader  kind  of  important  questions.     For  any 
thing  requiring  fine  nicety  of  speculation,  long  elab 
orateness  of    deduction,    evanescent    sharpness   of 
distinction,  neither  his  style  nor  his  mind  was  fit. 
He  had  no  patience  for  long  argument,  no  acute- 
ness   for   delicate  precision,  no  fangs  for  recondite 
research.     Writers,  like  teeth,  are  divided  into  in 
cisors  and  grinders.     Sydney  Smith  was  a  molar. 
He  did  not  run  a  long,  sharp  argument  into  the 
interior  of  a  question ;  he  did  not,  in  the  common 
phrase,  go  deeply  into  it ;  but  he  kept  it   steadily 
under  the   contract  of  a  strong,  capable,  jawlike 
understanding,  —  pressing  its  surface,  effacing  its 
intricacies,   grinding   it  down.     Yet  this   is   done 
without  toil.     The  play  of  the  molar   is  instinctive 
and  placid ;  he  could  not   help  it ;  it  would  seem 
that  he  had  an  enjoyment  in  it." 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  91 

One  reads  this  with  a  feeling  that  Bagehot  both 
knows  and  likes  Sydney  Smith,  and  heartily  ap 
preciates  him  as  an  engine  of  Whig  thought ;  and 
with  the  conviction  that  Bagehot  himself,  knowing 
thus  and  enjoying  Smith's  freehand  method  of 

writing,  could  have  done  the  like  himself, could 

himself  have  made  English  ring  to  all  the  old  Whig 
tunes,  like  an  anvil  under  the  hammer.  And  yet 
you  have  only  to  turn  back  a  page  in  the  same 
essay  to  find  quite  another  Bagehot,  —  a  Bagehot 
such  as  Sydney  Smith  could  not  have  been.  He 
is  speaking  of  that  other  militant  Edinburgh  re 
viewer,  Lord  Jeffrey,  and  is  recalling,  as  every  one 
recalls,  Jeffrey's  review  of  Wordsworth's  "  Excur 
sion."  The  first  words  of  that  review,  as  every 
body  remembers,  were,  "  This  will  never  do  ;  "  and 
there  followed  upon  those  words,  though  not  a 
little  praise  of  the  poetical  beauties  of  the  poem,  a 
thoroughly  meant  condemnation  of  the  school  of 
poets  of  which  Wordsworth  was  the  greatest  repre 
sentative.  Very  celebrated  in  the  world  of  Iitera4 
ture  is  the  leading  case  of  Jeffrey  v.  Wordsworth. 
It  is  in  summing  up  this  case  that  Bagehot  gives 
us  a  very  different  taste  of  his  quality : 

"The  world  has  given  judgment.  Both  Mr. 
Wordsworth  and  Lord  Jeffrey  have  received  their 
reward.  The  one  had  his  own  generation,  the 


92  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

laughter  of  men,  the  applause  of  drawing-rooms, 
the  concurrence  of  the  crowd  ;  the  other  a  succeed 
ing  age,  the  fond  enthusiasm  of  secret  students,  the 
lonely  rapture  of  lonely  minds.  And  each  has  re 
ceived  according  to  his  kind.  If  all  cultivated  men 
speak  differently  because  of  the  existence  of  Words 
worth  and  Coleridge ;  if  not  a  thoughtful  English 
book  has  appeared  for  forty  years  without  some 
trace  for  good  or  evil  of  their  influence ;  if  sermon- 
writers  subsist  upon  their  thoughts ;  if  '  sacred 
poets '  thrive  by  translating  their  weaker  portions 
into  the  speech  of  women  ;  if,  when  all  this  is  over, 
some  sufficient  part  of  their  writing  will  ever  be 
found  fitting  food  for  wild  musing  and  solitary  med 
itation,  surely  this  is  because  they  possessed  the 
inner  nature,  — '  an  intense  and  glowing  mind,' 
'  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine.'  But  if,  per 
chance,  in  their  weaker  moments,  the  great  authors 
of  the  4  Lyrical  Ballads '  did  ever  imagine  that  the 
world  was  to  pause  because  of  their  verses,  that 
'Peter  Bell'  would  be  popular  in  drawing-rooms, 
that  '  Christabel '  would  be  perused  in  the  city,  that 
people  of  fashion  would  make  a  handbook  of  4  The 
Excursion,'  it  was  well  for  them  to  be  told  at 
once  that  this  was  not  so.  Nature  ingeniously 
prepared  a  shrill  artificial  voice,  which  spoke  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  enough  and  more  than 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  93 

enough,  what  will  ever  be  the  idea  of  the  cities  of 
the  plain  concerning  those  who  live  alone  among  the 
mountains,  of  the  frivolous  concerning  the  grave,  of 
the  gregarious  concerning  the  recluse,  of  those  who 
laugh  concerning  those  who  laugh  not,  of  the  com 
mon  concerning  the  uncommon,  of  those  who  lend 
on  usury  concerning  those  who  lend  not ;  the  notion 
of  the  world  of  those  whom  it  will  not  reckon 
among  the  righteous,  —  it  said,  '  This  won't  do  ! ' 
And  so  in  all  time  will  the  lovers  of  polished  Lib 
eralism  speak  concerning  the  intense  and  lonely 
prophet." 

This  is  no  longer  the  Bagehot  who  could  "  write 
across  a  sheet"  with  Sydney  Smith.  It  is  now 
a  Bagehot  whose  heart  is  turned  away  from  the 
cudgeling  Whigs  to  see  such  things  as  are  hidden 
from  the  bearers  of  cudgels,  and  revealed  only  to 
those  who  can  await  in  the  sanctuary  of  a  quiet 
mind  the  coming  of  the  vision. 

Single  specimens  of  such  a  man's  writing  do  not 
suffice,  of  course,  even  as  specimens.  They  need 
their  context  to  show  their  appositeness,  the  full 
body  of  the  writing  from  which  they  are  taken  to 
show  the  mass  and  system  of  the  thought.  Even 
separated  pieces  of  his  matter  prepare  us,  never 
theless,  for  finding  in  Bagehot  keener,  juster  esti 
mates  of  difficult  historical  and  political  characters 


94  A  LITEEAEY  POLITICIAN. 

than  it  is  given  the  merely  exact  historian,  with 
his  head  full  of  facts  and  his  heart  purged  of  all 
imagination,  to  speak.  There  is  his  estimate  of 
the  cavalier,  for  example  :  "  A  cavalier  is  always 
young.  The  buoyant  life  arises  before  us,  rich  in 
hope,  strong  in  vigor,  irregular  in  action:  men 
young  and  ardent,  4  framed  in  the  prodigality  of 
nature ; '  open  to  every  enjoyment,  alive  to  every 
passion,  eager,  impulsive  ;  brave  without  discipline, 
noble  without  principle  ;  prizing  luxury,  despising 
ctanger  ;  capable  of  high  sentiment,  but  in  each 
of  whom  the 

'  addiction  was  to  courses  vain  ; 
His  companies  unlettered,  rude,  and  shallow  ; 
His  hours  filled  up  with  riots,  banquets,  sports, 
And  never  noted  in  him  any  study, 
Any  retirement,  any  sequestration 
From  open  haunts  and  popularity.' 

The  political  sentiment  is  part  of  the  character ; 
the  essence  of  Toryism  is  enjoyment.  .  .  .  The  way 
to  keep  up  old  customs  is  to  enjoy  old  customs  ; 
the  way  to  be  satisfied  with  the  present  state  of 
things  is  to  enjoy  the  present  state  of  things.  Over 
the  cavalier  mind  this  world  passes  with  a  thrill  of 
delight ;  there  is  an  exultation  in  a  daily  event, 
zest  in  the  *  regular  thing,'  joy  at  an  old  feast." 
Is  it  not  most  natural  that  the  writer  of  a  pas- 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  95 

sage  like  that  should  have  been  a  consummate 
critic  of  politics,  seeing  institutions  through  men,  i 
the  only  natural  way  ?  It  was  as  necessary  that 
he  should  be  able  to  enjoy  Sydney  Smith  and  re 
cognize  the  seer  in  Wordsworth  as  that  he  should 
be  able  to  conceive  the  cavalier  life  and  point  of 
view ;  and  in  each  perception  there  is  the  same 
power.  He  is  as  little  at  fault  in  understanding 
men  of  his  own  day.  What  would  you  wish  bet 
ter  than  his  celebrated  character  of  a  "  constitu 
tional  statesman,"  for  example  ?  "A  constitutional 
statesman  is  a  man  of  common  opinions  and  un 
common  abilities."  Peel  is  his  example.  "  His 
opinions  resembled  the  daily  accumulating  insen 
sible  deposits  of  a  rich  alluvial  soil.  The  great 
stream  of  time  flows  on  with  all  things  on  its  sur 
face  ;  and  slowly,  grain  by  grain,  a  mould  of  wise 
experience  is  unconsciously  left  on  the  still,  ex 
tended  intellect.  .  .  .  The  stealthy  accumulating 
words  of  Peel  seem  like  the  quiet  leavings  of  some 
outward  tendency,  which  brought  these,  but  might 
as  well  have  brought  others.  There  is  no  peculiar 
stamp,  either,  on  the  ideas.  They  might  have 
been  any  one's  ideas.  They  belong  to  the  general 
diffused  stock  of  observations  which  are  to  be 
found  in  the  civilized  world.  ...  He  insensibly 
takes  in  and  imbibes  the  ideas  of  those  around  him. 


96  A  LITEEAEY  POLITICIAN. 

If  he  were  left  in  a  vacuum,  he  would  have  no 
ideas." 

What  strikes  one  most,  perhaps,  in  all  these 
passages,  is  the  realizing  imagination  which  illu 
minates  them.  And  it  is  an  imagination  with  a 
practical  character  all  its  own.  It  is  not  a  creating, 
but  a  conceiving  imagination  ;  not  the  imagination 
of  the  fancy,  but  the  imagination  of  the  under 
standing.  Conceiving  imaginations,  however,  are 
of  two  kinds.  For  the  one  kind  the  understanding 
serves  as  a  lamp  of  guidance  ;  upon  the  other  the 
understanding  acts  as  an  electric  excitant,  a  keen 
irritant.  Bagehot's  was  evidently  of  the  first  kind  ; 
Carlyle's,  conspicuously  of  the  second.  There  is 
something  in  common  between  the  minds  of  these 
two  men  as  they  conceive  society.  Both  have  a 
capital  grip  upon  the  actual ;  both  can  conceive 
without  confusion  the  complex  phenomena  of  soci 
ety  ;  both  send  humorous  glances  of  searching  in 
sight  into  the  hearts  of  men.  But  it  is  the  differ 
ence  between  them  that  most  arrests  our  attention. 
Bagehot  has  the  scientific  imagination,  Carlyle  the 
passionate.  Bagehot  is  the  embodiment  of  witty 
common  sense ;  all  the  movements  of  his  mind 
illustrate  that  vivacious  sanity  which  he  has  himself 
called  "  animated  moderation."  Carlyle,  on  the 
other  hand,  conceives  men  and  their  motives  too 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  97 

often  with  a  hot  intolerance ;  there  is  heat  in  his 
imagination,  —  a  heat  that  sometimes  scorches  and 
consumes.  Life  is  for  him  dramatic,  full  of  fierce, 
imperative  forces.  Even  when  the  world  rings 
with  laughter,  it  is  laughter  which,  in  his  ears,  is 
succeeded  by  an  echo  of  mockery  ;  laughter  which 
is  but  a  defiance  of  tears.  The  actual  which  you 
touch  in  Bagehot  is  the  practical,  operative  actual 
of  a  world  of  workshops  and  parliaments,  —  a 
world  of  which  workshops  and  parliaments  are  the 
natural  and  desirable  products.  Carlyle  flouts  at 
modern  legislative  assemblies  as  "  talking  shops," 
and  yearns  for  action  such  as  is  commanded  by 
masters  of  action ;  preaches  the  doctrine  of  work 
and  silence  in  some  thirty  volumes  octavo.  Bage 
hot  points  out  that  prompt,  crude  action  is  the 
instinct  and  practice  of  the  savage  ;  that  talk,  the 
deliberation  of  assemblies,  the  slow  concert  of 
masses  of  men,  is  the  cultivated  fruit  of  civiliza 
tion,  nourishing  to  all  the  powers  of  right  action 
in  a  society  which  is  not  simple  and  primitive,  but 
advanced  and  complex.  He  is  no  more  imposed 
upon  by  parliamentary  debates  than  Carlyle  is. 
He  knows  that  they  are  stupid,  and,  so  far  as  wise 
utterance  goes,  in  large  part  futile,  too.  But  he  is 
not  irritated,  as  Carlyle  is,  for,  to  say  the  fact,  he 
sees  more  than  Carlyle  sees.  He  sees  the  force 


98  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

and  value  of  the  stupidity.  He  is  wise,  along  with 
Burke,  in  regarding  prejudice  as  the  cement  of 
society.  He  knows  that  slow  thought,  is  the*  ballast 

of  a  self  -governing  state.      Stanch,  knitted  timbers 


are  as  necessary  to  the  shijajis^  sails.  Unless  the 
hull  is  conservative  in  holding  stubbornly  together 
in  the  face  of  every  argument  of  sea  weather, 
there  '11  be  lives  and  fortunes  lost.  Bagehot  can 
laugh  at  unreasoning  bias.  It  brings  a  merry 
twinkle  into  his  eye  to  undertake  the  good  sport 
of  dissecting  stolid  stupidity.  But  he  would  not 
for  the  world  abolish  bias  and  stupidity.  .  jpTp  would 
much  rather  have  society  hold—  together  ^  much 
rather_seejt^^row  than  undertake  to  reconstruct_it. 
"  You  remember  my  joke  against  you  about  the 
moon,"  writes  Sydney  Smith  to  Jeffrey  ;  "  d  —  11 
the  solar  system  —  bad  light  —  planets  too  distant 
_  pestered  with  comets  —  feeble  contrivance  ; 
could  make  a  better  with  great  ease."  There  was 
nothing  of  this  in  Bagehot.  He  was  inclined  to  be 
quite  tolerant  of  the  solar  system^JELe  understood 
that  society  was  more  quickly  bettered  by  sympa 
thy  than  by  antagonism. 

Bagehot  's  limitations,  though  they  do  not  ob 
trude  themselves  upon  your  attention  as  his  excel 
lencies  do,  are  in  truth  as  sharp-cut  and  clear 
as  his  thought  itself.  It  would  not  be  just  the 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  99 

truth  to  say  that  his  power  is  that  of  critical  analy 
sis  only,  for  he  can  and  does  construct  thought 
concerning  antique  and  obscure  systems  of  political 
life  and  social  action.  But  it  is  true  that  he  does 
not  construct  for  the  future.  You  receive  stimula 
tion  from  him  and  a  certain  feeling  of  elation. 
There  is  a  fresh  air  stirring  in  all  his  utterances 
that  is  unspeakably  refreshing.  You  open  your 
mind  to  the  fine  influence,  and  feel  younger  for  hav 
ing  been  in  such  an  atmosphere.  It  is  an  atmosphere 
clarified  and  bracing  almost  beyond  example  else 
where.  But  you  know  what  you  lack  in  Bagehot  if 
you  have  read  Burke.  Youmiss  the  deep  eloquence 
whiqhjiwakens  purpose.  You  arj^  not  in  contact 
with  ^ystems^of  thought  or  with  principles  that 
dictate^ctip^but  only  with  a  perfect  explanation. 

You  would  go  to  Burke,  not  to  Bagehot,  for 
inspiration  in  the  infinite  tasks  of  self-government ; 
though  you  would,  if  you  were  wise,  go  to  Bagehot 
rather  than  to  Burke  if  you  wished  to  realize  just 
what  were  the  practical  daily  conditions  under 
which  those  tasks  were  to  be  worked  out. 

Moreover,  there  is  a  deeper  lack  in   Bagehot.  j 
He^has  no  sympathy  with  the  voiceless  body  of  the 
peo^le^  with  the"""  mass  of  unknown  men."     Hej 
conceives   the  work  of  government  to  be  a  work 
which   is  possible  only  to  the  instructed  few.     He 


100  A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN. 

would  have  the  mass  served,  and  served  with  de 
votion,  but  he  would  trouble  to  see  them  attempt 
to  serve  themselves.  He  has  not  the  stout  fibre 
and  the  unquestioning  faith  in  the  right  and  capa 
city  of  inorganic  majorities  which  make  the  demo 
crat.  He  has  none  of  the  heroic  boldness  necessary 
for  faith  in  wholesale  political  aptitude  and  capacity. 
He  takes  democracy  in  detail  in  his  thought,  and 
to  take  it  in  detail  makes  it  look  very  awkward 
indeed. 

And  yet  surely  it  would  not  occur  to  the  veriest 
democrat  that  ever  vociferated  the  "  sovereignty  of 
the  people  "  to  take  umbrage  at  anything  Bagehot 
might  chance  to  say  in  dissection  of  democracy. 
What  he  says  is  seldom  provokingly  true.  There 
is  something  in  it  all  that  is  better  than  a  "  saving 
clause,"  and  that  is  a  saving  humor.  Humor  ever 
keeps  the  whole  of  his  matter  sound ;  it  is  an  excel 
lent  salt  that  keeps  sweet  the  sharpest  of  his  say 
ings.  Indeed,  Bagehot' s  wit  is  so  prominent  among 
his  gifts  that  I  am  tempted  here  to  enter  a  general 
plea  for  wit  as  fit  company  for  high  thoughts  and 
weighty  subjects.  Wit  does  not  make  a  subject 
light ;  it  simply  beats  it  into  shape  to  be  handled 
readily.  For  my  part,  I  make  free  acknowledg 
ment  that  no  man  seems  to  me  master  of  his  sub 
ject  who  cannot  take  liberties  with  it ;  who  cannot 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  101 

slap  his  propositions  on  the  back  and  be  hail-fellow 
well  met  with  them.  Suspect  a  man  of  shallowness 
who  always  takes  himself  and  all  that  he  thinks 
seriously.  For  light  on  a  dark  subject  commend 
me  to  a  ray  of  wit.  Most  of  your  solemn  explana 
tions  are  mere  farthing  candles  in  the  great  ex 
panse  of  a  difficult  question.  Wit  is  not,  I  admit, 
a  steady  light,  but  ^^  its  flashes  give  you  sudden 
glimpses  of  unsuspected  things  such  as  you  will 
never  see  without  it.  It  is  the  summer  lightning, 
which  will  bring  more  to  your  startled  eye  in  an 
instant,  out  of  the  hiding  of  the  night,  than  you 
will  ever  be  at  the  pains  to  observe  in  the  full  blaze 
of  noon. 

Wit  is  movement,  is  play  of  mind;  and  the 
mind  cannot  get  play  without  a  sufficient  play 
ground.  Without  movement  outside  the  wrorld  of 
books,  it  is  impossible  a  man  should  see  aught  but 
the  very  neatly  arranged  phenomena  of  that  world. 
But  it  is  possible  for  a  man's  thought  to  be  in 
structed  by  the  world  of  affairs  without  the  man 
himself  becoming  a  part  of  it.  Indeed,  it  is  ex 
ceedingly  hard  for  one  who  is  in  and  of  it  to  hold 
the  world  of  affairs  off  at  arm's  length  and  observe 
it.  He  has  no  vantage-ground.  He  had  better  for 
a  while  seek  the  distance  of  books,  and  get  his  per 
spective.  The  literary  politician,  let  it  be  distinctly 


102 


A  LITER AEY  POLITICIAN. 


said,  is  a  very  fine,  a  very  superior  species  of  the 
man  thoughtful.  He  reads  books  as  he  would  lis 
ten  to  men  talk.  He  stands  apart,  and  looks  on, 
with^  humorous,  sympathetic  smile,  at  the  play  of 
policies.  He  will  tell  you  for  the  asking  what  the 
J^  play_ersare  thinking  about.  He  divines^at  once 
the  parts  are  cast.  He  knows  beforehand 


what  each  act  is  to  discover.  He  might  readily 
guess  what  the  dialogue  is  to  contain.  Were  you 
short  of  scene-shifters,  he  could  serve  you  admira 
bly  in  an  emergency.  And  he  is  a  better  critic  of 
the  play  than  the  players. 

Had  I  command  of  the  culture  of  men,  I  should 
wish  to  raise  up  for  the  instruction  and  stimulation 
of  my  nation  more  than  one  sane,  sagacious,  pene 
trative  critic  of  men  and  affairs  like  Walter  Bage- 
hot.  But  that,  of  course.  The_j>ro£&LJt3i£^_  to 
draw  from  his  singular  genius  is  this :  It  is  notjthe 
constitutional  lawyer,  nor  the  student  of  the  mere 
macljiinery  and  legal  structure  of  institutions,  nor 
the  joolitician,  a  mere  handler  of  that  machinery, 

1>gi  r.0mppfpnt   tr>  nnf1first.fl.Tifl   a.nrl    Aypnnnrl   goy- 


ernment  ;  but  the  man  who  finds  the  materials  for 
his  thought  far  and  wide,  in  everythjn^Jhat  reveals 
character  and  circumstance  _and  —  motive.  Jt^is 
necessary  to  standwith  the_j)oets  as  welj_as_with 
lawgivers  ;  with  the  lathers  of  the  race  as  well  as 


A  LITERARY  POLITICIAN.  103 

with  your  neighbor  of  to-day ;  with  those  who  toil 
and  are  sick  at  heart  as  well  as  with  those  who 
prosper  and  laugh  and  take  their  pleasure ;  with 
the  merchant  and  the  manufacturer  as  well  as  with 
the  closeted  student;  with  the  schoolmaster  and 
with  those  whose  only  school  is  life ;  with  the 
orator  and  with  the  men  who  have  wrought  always 
in  silence ;  in  the  midst  of  thought  and  also  in  the 
midst  of  affairs,  if  you  would  really  comprehend 
those  great  wholes  of  history  and  of  character 
which  are  the  vital  substance  of  politics. 


V. 

THE  INTERPRETER   OF   ENGLISH   LIBERTY. 

IN  the  middle  of  the  last  century  two  Irish 
adventurers  crossed  over  into  England  in  search  of 
their  fortunes.  Rare  fellows  they  were,  bringing 
treasure  with  them ;  but  finding  it  somehow  hard 
to  get  upon  the  market :  traders  with  a  curious 
cargo,  offering  edification  in  exchange  for  a  living, 
and  concealing  the  best  of  English  under  a  rich 
brogue.  They  were  Edmund  Burke  and  Oliver 
Goldsmith. 

They  did  not  cross  over  together :  't  was  no  joint 
venture.  They  had  been  fellow  students  at  Trinity 
College,  Dublin ;  but  they  had  not,  so  far  as  we 
can  learn,  known  each  other  there.  Each  went 
his  own  way  till  they  became  comrades  in  the  reign 
of  Samuel  Johnson  at  the  Turk's  Head  Tavern. 
Burke  stepped  very  boldly  forth  into  the  exposed 
paths  of  public  life  ;  Goldsmith  plunged  into  the 
secret  ways  about  Grub  Street.  The  one  gave  us 
essays  upon  public  questions  incomparable  for  their 
reach  of  view  and  their  splendid  power  of  expres- 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     105 

sion ;  the  other  gave  us  writings  so  exquisite  for 
their  delicacy,  purity,  and  finish  as  to  incline  us  to 
love  him  almost  as  much  as  those  who  knew  him 
loved  him.  We  could  not  easily  have  forgiven 
Ireland  if  she  had  not  given  us  these  men.  The 
one  had  grave  faults  of  temper  ;  the  other  was  a 
reckless,  roystering  fellow,  with  a  most  irrepressible 
Irish  disposition  ;  but  how  much  less  we  should  have 
known  without  Burke,  how  much  less  we  should 
have  enjoyed  without  Goldsmith  !  They  have  con 
quered  places  for  themselves  in  English  literature 
from  which  we  neither  can  nor  would  dislodge 
them.  For  their  sakes  alone  we  can  afford  to  for 
give  Ireland  all  the  trouble  she  has  caused  us. 

There  is  no  man  anywhere  to  be  found  in  the 
annals  of  Parliament  who  seems  more  thoroughly 
to  belong  to  England  than  does  Edmund  Burke, 
indubitable  Irishman  though  he  was.  His  words, 
now  that  they  have  cast  off  their  brogue,  ring  out 
the  authentic  voice  of  the  best  political  thought  of 
the  English  race.  "  If  any  man  ask  me,"  he  cries, 
"  what  a  free  government  is,  I  answer,  that,  for  any 
practical  purpose,  it  is  what  the  people  think  so,  — 
and  that  they,  and  not  I,  are  the  natural,  lawful, 
and  competent  judges  of  the  matter."  "  Abstract 
liberty,  like  other  mere  abstractions,  is  not  to  be 
found.  Liberty  adheres  in  some  sensible  object ; 


106      INTEEPEETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

and  every  nation  has  formed  to  itself  some  favorite 
point,  which  by  way  of  eminence  becomes  the  crite 
rion  of  their  happiness."     These  sentences,  taken 
from  his  writings  on  American  affairs,  might  serve 
as  a  sort  of  motto  of  the  practical  spirit  of  our  race 
in  affairs  of  government.     Look  further,  and  you 
shall  see  how  his  imagination  presently  illuminates 
and  suffuses  his  maxims  of  practical  sagacity  with 
a  fine  blaze  of  insight,  a  keen  glow  of  feeling,  in 
which  you  recognize  that  other  masterful  quality  of 
the  race,  its  intense  and  elevated  conviction.    "My 
hold  on  the  colonies,"  he  declares,  "  is  in  the  close 
affection  which  grows  from  common  names,  from 
kindred  blood,  from  similar  privileges,  and  equal 
protection.     These  are  the  ties  which,  though  light 
as  air,  are  as  strong   as  links  of  iron.     Let  the 
colonies  always  keep  the  idea  of  their  civil  rights 
associated  with  your  government,  —  they  will  cling 
and  grapple  to  you,  and  no  force  under  heaven  will 
be  of  power   to  tear  them  from  their  allegiance. 
But  let  it  once  be  understood  that  your  government 
may  be  one  thing  and  their  privileges  another,  that 
these  two   things  may   exist  without  any  mutual 
relation,  —  and  the  cement  is  gone,  the  cohesion  is 
loosened,  and  everything  hastens  to  decay  and  dis 
solution.     So  long  as  you  have  the  wisdom  to  keep 
the  sovereign  power  of  this  country  as  the  sanctuary 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.      107 

of  liberty,  the  sacred  temple  consecrated  to  our 
common  faith,  wherever  the  chosen  race  and  sons 
of  England  worship  freedom,  they  will  turn  their 
faces  towards  you."  "  We  cannot,  I  fear,"  he  says 
proudly  of  the  colonies,  "  we  cannot  falsify  the 
pedigree  of  this  fierce  people,  and  persuade  them 
that  they  are  not  sprung  from  a  nation  in  whose 
veins  the  blood  of  freedom  circulates.  The  lan 
guage  in  which  they  would  hear  you  tell  them  this 
tale  would  detect  the  imposition ;  your  speech 
would  betray  you.  An  Englishman  is  the  unfittest 
person  on  earth  to  argue  another  Englishman  into 
slavery."  Does  not  'your  blood  stir  at  these  pas 
sages  ?  And  is  it  not  because,  besides  loving  what 
is  nobly  written,  you  feel  that  every  word  strikes 
towards  the  heart  of  the  things  that  have  made 
your  Klgnf1  wha.f.  if.  J^aqj^vvvArl  to  be  in  the  history 
of  our  race  ? 

These  passages,  it  should  be  remembered,  are 
taken  from  a  speech  in  Parliament  and  from"  a 
letter  written  by  Burke  to  his  constituents  in 
Bristol.  He  had  no  thought  to  make  them  perma 
nent  sentences  of  political  philosophy.  They  were 
meant  only  to  serve  an  immediate  purpose  in  the 
advancement  of  contemporaneous  policy.  They 
were  framed  for  the  circumstances  of  the  time. 
They  speak  out  spontaneously  amidst  matter  of  the 


108      INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

moment :  and  they  could  be  matched  everywhere 
throughout  his  pamphlets  and  public  utterances. 
No  other  similar  productions  that  I  know  of  have 
this  singular,  and  as  it  were  inevitable,  quality  of 
permanency.  They  have  emerged  from  the  mass 
of  political  writings  put  forth  in  their  time  with 
their  freshness  untouched,  their  significance  un- 
obscured,  their  splendid  vigor  unabated.  It  is  this 
that  we  marvel  at,  that  they  should  remain  modern 
and  timely,  purged  of  every  element  and  seed  of 
decay.  The  man  who  could  do  this  must  needs 
arrest  our  attention  and  challenge  our  inquiry. 
We  wish  to  account  for  him'  as  we  should  wish  to 
penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  human  spirit  and  know 
the  springs  of  genius. 

Of  the  public  life  of  Burke  we  know  all  that  we 
could  wish.  He  became  so  prominent  a  figure  in 
the  great  affairs  of  his  day  that  even  the  casual 
observer  cannot  fail  to  discern  the  main  facts  of 
his  career ;  while  the  close  student  can  follow  him 
year  by  year  through  every  step  of  his  service. 
But  his  private  life  was  withdrawn  from  general 
scrutiny  in  an  unusual  degree.  He  manifested 
always  a  marked  reserve  about  his  individual  and 
domestic  affairs,  deliberately,  it  would  seem,  shield 
ing  them  from  impertinent  inquiry.  He  loved  the 
privacy  of  life  in  a  great  city,  where  one  may  escape 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.      109 

notice  in  the  crowd  and  enjoy  a  grateful  "  freedom 
from  remark  and  petty  censure."  "  Though  I 
have  the  honor  to  represent  Bristol,"  he  said  to 
Boswell,  "  I  should  not  like  to  live  there ;  I  should 
be  obliged  to  be  so  much  upon  my  good  behavior. 
In  London  a  man  may  live  in  splendid  society  at 
one  time,  and  in  frugal  retirement  at  another, 
without  animadversion.  There,  and  there  alone,  a 
man's  house  is  truly  his  castle,  in  which  he  can 
be  in  perfect  safety  from  intrusion  whenever  he 
pleases.  I  never  shall  forget  how  well  this  was 
expressed  to  me  one  day  by  Mr.  Meynell :  '  The 
chief  advantage  of  London,'  he  said,  4is,  that  a 
man  is  always  so  near  his  burrow' '  Burke  took 
to  his  burrow  often  enough  to  pique  our  curiosity 
sorely.  This  singular,  high-minded  adventurer  had 
some  queer  companions,  we  know:  questionable 
fellows,  whose  life  he  shared,  perhaps  with  a  certain 
Bohemian  relish,  without  sharing  their  morals  or 
their  works.  It  seems  as  incongruous  that  such 
wisdom  and  public  spirit  as  breathe  through  his 
writings  should  have  come  to  his  thought  in  such 
company  as  that  an  exquisite  idyll  like  Goldsmith's 
"  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  should  have  been  conceived 
and  written  in  squalid  garrets.  But  neither  Burke 
nor  Goldsmith  had  been  born  into  such  comrade 
ships  or  such  surroundings.  Doubtless,  as  some- 


110      INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

times  happens,  their  minds  kept  their  first  freshness. 
taking  no  taint  from  the  world  that  touched  them 
on  every  hand  in  their  manhood,  after  their  minds 
had  been  formed.  Goldsmith,  as  everybody  knows, 
remained  an  innocent  all  his  life,  a  naif  and  pettish 
boy  amidst  sophisticated  men  ;  and  Burke  too,  not 
withstanding  his  dignity  and  commanding  intellec 
tual  habit,  shows  sometimes  a  touch  of  the  same 
simplicity,  a  like  habit  of  unguarded  self  -revelation. 
'T  was  their  form,  no  doubt,  of  that  impulsive  and 
ingenuous  quality  which  we  observe  in  all  Irishmen, 
and  which  we  often  mistake  for  simplicity.  'T  was 
a  flavor  of  their  native  soil.  It  was  also  something 
more  and  better  than  that,  however.  Not  every 
Irishman  displays  such  hospitality  for  direct  and 
simple  images  of  truth  as  these  men  showed,  for 
that  is  characteristic  only  of  the  open  and  un 
sophisticated  mind,  —  the  mind  that  has  kept  pure 
and  open  eyes.  Not  that  Burke  always  sees  the 
truth;  he  is  even  deeply  prejudiced  often,  and 
there  are  some  things  that  he  cannot  see.  But  the 
passion  that  dominates  him  when  he  is  wrong,  as 
when  he  is  right,  is  a  natural  passion,  born  with 
him,  not  acquired  from  a  disingenuous  world  that 
mistakes  interest  for  justice.  His 


everything.     It  is  stock  of  his  character  which  he 
contributes  to  the  subjects  his  mind  handles.     lie 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.      Ill 

is  trading  always  with  the  original  treasure  he 
brought  over  with  him  at  the  first.  He  has  never 
impaired  his  genuineness,  or  damaged  his  princi 
ples. 

Just  where  Burke  got  his  generous  constitution 
and  predisposition  to  enlightened  ways  of  thinking 
it  is  not  easy  to  see.  Certainly  Richard  Burke, 
his  brother,  the  only  other  member  of  the  family 
whose  character  we  discern  distinctly,  had  a  quite 
opposite  bent.  The  father  was  a  steady  Dublin 
attorney,  a  Protestant,  and  a  man,  so  far  as  we 
know,  of  solid  but  not  brilliant  parts.  The  mo 
ther  had  been  a  Miss  Nagle,  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
family,  which  had  multiplied  exceedingly  in  County 
Cork.  Of  the  home  and  its  life  we  know  singu 
larly  little.  We  are  told  that  many  children  were 
born  to  the  good  attorney,  but  we  hear  of  only  four 
of  them  that  grew  to  maturity,  Garret,  Edmund, 
Richard,  and  a  sister  best  known  to  Edmund's  bio 
graphers  as  Mrs.  French.  Edmund,  the  second 
son,  was  born  on  the  twelfth  of  January,  1729,  in 
the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  George  II.,  Robert 
Walpole  being  chief  minister  of  the  Crown.  How 
he  fared  or  what  sort  of  lad  he  was  for  the  first 
twelve  years  of  his  life  we  have  no  idea.  We  only 
know  that  in  the  year  1741,  being  then  twelve 
years  old,  he  was  sent  with  his  brothers  Garret  and 


112     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

Richard  to  the  school  of  one  Abraham  Shackle  ton, 
a  most  capable  and  exemplary  Quaker,  at  Ballytore, 
County  Kildare,  to  get,  in  some  two  years'  time, 
what  he  himself  always  accounted  the  best  part  of 
his  education.  The  character  of  the  good  master 
at  Ballytore  told  upon  the  sensitive  boy,  who  all 
his  life  through  had  an  eye  for  such  elevation  and 
calm  force  of  quiet  rectitude  as  are  to  be  seen  in 
the  best  Quakers ;  and  with  Richard  Shackle  ton, 
the  master's  son,  he  formed  a  friendship  from  which 
110  vicissitude  of  his  subsequent  career  ever  loosened 
his  heart  a  whit.  All  his  life  long  the  ardent, 
imaginative  statesman,  deeply  stirred  as  he  was  by 
the  momentous  agitation  of  affairs,  —  swept  away 
as  he  was  from  other  friends,  —  retained  his  love 
for  the  grave,  retired,  almost  austere,  but  generous 
and  constant  man  who  had  been  his  favorite 
schoolfellow.  It  is  but  another  evidence  of  his  un 
failing  regard  for  whatever  was  steady,  genuine, 
and  open  to  the  day  in  character  and  conduct. 

At  fourteen  he  left  Ballytore  and  was  entered  at 
Trinity  College,  Dublin.  Those  were  days  when 
youths  went  to  college  tender,  before  they  had  be 
come  too  tough  to  take  impressions  readily.  But 
Burke,  even  at  that  callow  age,  cannot  be  said  to 
have  been  teachable.  He  learned  a  vast  deal,  in 
deed,  but  he  did  not  learn  much  of  it  from  his 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     113 

nominal  masters  at  Trinity.  Apparently  Master 
Shackleton,  at  Ballytore,  had  enabled  him  to  find 
his  own  mind.  His  four  years  at  college  were 
years  of  wide  and  eager  reading,  but  not  years  of 
systematic  and  disciplinary  study.  With  singidar, 
if  not  exemplary,  self-confidence,  he  took  his 
education  into  his  own  hands.  He  got  at  the 
heart  of  books  through  their  spirit,  it  would  seem, 
rather  than  through  their  grammar.  He  sought 
them  out  for  what  they  could  yield  him  in  thought, 
rather  than  for  what  they  could  yield  him  in  the 
way  of  exact  scholarship.  That  this  boy  should 
have  had  such  an  appetite  for  the  world's  literature, 
old  and  new,  need  not  surprise  us.  Other  lads  be 
fore  and  since  have  found  big  libraries  all  too  small 
for  them.  What  should  arrest  our  attention  is, 
the  law  of  mind  disclosed  in  the  habits  of  such  lads  : 
the  quick  and  various  curiosity  of  original  minds, 
and  particularly  of  imaginative  minds.  They  long 
for  matter  to  expand  themselves  upon  :  they  will 
climb  any  dizzy  height  from  which  an  exciting 
prospect  is  promised :  it  is  their  joy  by  some  means 
to  see  the  world  of  men  and  affairs.  Burke  set 
out  as  a  boy  to  see  the  world  that  is  contained  in 
books  ;  and  in  his  journeyings  he  met  a  man  after 
his  own  heart  in  Cicero,  the  copious  orator  and 
versatile  man  of  affairs,  —  the  only  man  at  all  like 


114     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

Burke  for  richness,  expansiveness,  and  variety  of 
mind  in  all  the  ancient  world.  Cicero  he  conned 
as  his  master  and  model.  And  then,  having  had 
his  fill  for  the  time  of  discursive  study  and  having 
completed  also  his  four  years  of  routine,  he  was 
graduated,  taking  his  degree  in  the  spring  of  1748. 
His  father  had  entered  him  as  a  student  at  the 
Middle  Temple  in  1747,  meaning  that  he  should 
seek  the  prizes  of  his  profession  in  England  rather 
than  in  the  little  world  at  home  ;  but  he  did  not  take 
up  his  residence  in  London  until  1750,  by  which 
time  he  had  attained  his  majority.  What  he  did 
with  the  intervening  two  years,  his  biographers  do 
not  at  all  know,  and  it  is  idle  to  speculate,  being 
confident,  as  we  must,  that  he  quite  certainly  did 
whatever  he  pleased.  He  did  the  same  when  he 
went  up  to  London  to  live  his  terms  at  the  Temple. 
"  The  law,"  he  declared  to  Parliament  more  than 
twenty  years  afterwards,  "  is,  in  my  opinion,  one 
of  the  first  and  noblest  of  human  sciences,  —  a 
science  which  does  more  to  quicken  and  invigorate 
the  understanding  than  all  other  kinds  of  learning 
put  together  ;  but  it  is  not  apt,  except  in  persons 
very  happily  born,  to  open  and  to  liberalize  the 
mind  exactly  in  the  same  proportion ; "  and,  al 
though  himself  a  person  "  very  happily  born  "  in 
respect  of  all  natural  powers,  he  felt  that  the  life 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     115 

of  a  lawyer  would  inevitably  confine  his  roving 
mind  within  intolerably  narrow  limits.  He  learned 
the  law,  as  he  learned  everything  else,  with  an  eye 
to  discovering  its  points  of  contact  with  affairs, 
its  intimate  connections  with  the  structure  and 
functions  of  human  society  ;  and,  studying  it  thus, 
he  made  his  way  to  so  many  of  its  secrets,  won  so 
firm  a  mastery  of  its  central  principles,  as  always 
to  command  the  respect  and  even  the  admiration 
of  lawyers.  But  the  good  attorney  in  Dublin 
was  sorely  disappointed.  This  was  not  what  he 
had  wanted.  The  son  in  whom  he  had  centred 
his  hopes  preferred  the  life  of  the  town  to  system 
atic  study  in  his  chambers ;  wrote  for  the  papers 
instead  of  devoting  himself  to  the  special  profession 
he  had  been  sent  to  master.  "  Of  his  leisure 
time,"  said  the  "  Annual  Register  "  just  after  his 
death,  "  of  his  leisure  time  much  was  spent  in  the 
company  of  Mrs.  Woffington,  a  celebrated  actress, 
whose  conversation  was  not  less  sought  by  men  of 
wit  and  genius  than  by  men  of  pleasure." 

We  know  very  little  about  the  life  of  Burke  for 
the  ten  years,  1750-60,  his  first  ten  years  in  Eng 
land,  —  except  that  he  did  not  diligently  apply 
himsely  to  his  nominal  business,  the  study  of  the 
law;  and  between  the  years  1752  and  1757  his 
biographers  can  show  hardly  one  authentic  trace  of 


116     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

his  real  life.     They  know  neither  his  whereabouts 
nor  his  employments.     Only  one  scrap  of  his  corre 
spondence  remains  from  those  years  to  give  us  any 
hint  of  the  time.     Even  Richard  Shackleton,  his 
invariable  confidant  and  bosom  friend,  hears  never 
a  word  from  him  during  that  period,  and  is  told 
afterwards  only  that  his   correspondent  has  been 
"  sometimes  in  London,  sometimes  in^  remote  parts 
of  the   country,   sometimes   in  France,"   and  will 
"  shortly,  please  God,  be  in  America."     He  disap 
pears  a  poor  law  student,  under  suspicion  of  his 
father  for  systematic  neglect  of  duty  ;  when  he  re 
appears  he  is  married  to  the  daughter  of  a  worthy 
physician  and  is  author  of  two  philosophical  works 
which  are  attracting  a  great  deal  of  attention.    We 
have  reason  to  believe  that,  in  the  mean  time,  he 
did  as  much  writing  as  they  would  take  for  the 
booksellers  ;  we  know  that  he  frequented  the  Lon 
don  theatres  and  several  of  the  innumerable  debat 
ing  clubs  with  which   nether   London   abounded, 
whetting  his  faculties,  it  is  said,  upon  those  of  a  cer 
tain  redoubtable  baker.     He  haunted  the  galleries 
and  lobbies  of  the  House  of  Commons.     His  health 
showed  signs  of  breaking,  and  Dr.  Nugent  took  him 
from  his  lodgings  in  the  Temple  to  his  own  house 
and  allowed  him  to  fall  in  love  with  his  daughter. 
Partly  for  the  sake  of  his  health,  perhaps,  but  more 


INTEEPEET.EE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY.     117 

particularly,  no  doubt,  for  the  sake  of  satisfying  an 
eager  mind  and  a  restless  habit,  he  wandered  off  to 
"  remote  parts  of  the  country "  and  to  France, 
with  one  William  Burke  for  company,  a  man  either 
related  to  him  or  not  related  to  him,  he  did  not 
himself  know  which.  In  1755,  a  long-suffering 
patience  at  length  exhausted,  his  father  shut  the 
home  treasury  against  him  ;  and  then,  —  'twas  the 
next  year,  —  he  published  two  philosophical  works 
and  married  Miss  Nugent. 

One  might  say,  no  doubt,  that  this  is  an  intelli 
gible  enough  account  of  a  young  fellow's  life  be 
tween  twenty  and  thirty :  and  that  we  can  fill  in 
the  particulars  for  ourselves.  We  have  known 
other  young  Irishmen  of  restless  and  volatile  na 
tures,  and  need  make  no  mystery  of  this  one. 
Goldsmith,  too,  disappeared,  we  remember,  in  that 
same  decade,  making  show  of  studying  medicine  in 
Edinburgh,  but  not  really  studying  it,  and  then 
wandering  off  to  the  Continent,  and  going  it  afoot 
in  light-hearted,  happy-go-lucky  fashion  through 
the  haunts  both  of  the  gay  Latin  races  and  the 
sad  Teutonic,  greatly  to  the  delectation,  no  doubt, 
of  the  natives,  —  for  all  the  world  loves  an  in 
nocent  Irishman,  with  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve. 
'T  would  all  be  very  plain  indeed  if  we  found  in 
Burke  that  light-hearted  vein.  But  we  do  not. 


118     INTERPRETER  OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

The  fellow  is  sober  and  strenuous  from  the  first, 
studying  the  things  he  was  not  sent  to  study 
with  even  too  intent  application,  to  the  damage  of 
his  health,  and  looking  through  the  pleasures  of 
the  town  to  the  heart  of  the  nation's  affairs.  He 
was  a  grave  youth,  evidently,  gratifying  his  mind 
rather  than  his  senses  in  the  pleasures  he  sought ; 
and  when  he  emerges  from  obscurity  it  is  first  to 
give  us  a  touch  of  his  quality  in  the  matter  of  in 
tellectual  amusement,  and  then  to  turn  at  once  to 
the  serious  business  of  the  discussion  of  affairs  to 
which  the  rest  of  his  life  was  to  be  devoted. 

The  two  books  which  he  gave  the  world  in  1756 
were  "A  Vindication  of  Natural  Society,"  a  satirical 
piece  in  the  manner  of  Bolingbroke,  and  "  A  Phil 
osophical  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  of  Our  Ideas  of 
the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,"  which  he  had  begun 
when  he  was  nineteen  and  had  since  reconsidered 
and  revised.  Bolingbroke,  not  finding  revealed  re 
ligion  to  his  taste,  had  written  a  "  Vindication  of 
Natural  Religion "  which  his  vigorous  and  ele 
vated  style  and  skillful  dialectic  had  done  much  to 
make  plausible.  Burke  put  forth  his  "Vindica 
tion  of  Natural  Society  "  as  a  posthumous  work  of 
the  late  noble  lord,  and  so  skillfully  veiled  the 
satirical  character  of  the  imitation  as  wholly  to 
deceive  some  very  grave  critics,  who  thought  they 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     119 

coiild  discern  Bolingbroke's  flavor  upon  the  tasting. 
For  the  style,  too,  they  took  to  be  unmistakably 
Bolingbroke's  own.  It  had  all  his  grandeur  and 
air  of  distinction  :  it  had  his  vocabulary  and  formal 
outline  of  phrase.  The  imitation  was  perfect. 
And  yet  if  you  will  scrutinize  it,  the  style  is 
not  Bolingbroke's,  except  in  a  trick  or  two,  but 
Burke's.  It  seems  Bolingbroke's  rather  because 
it  is  cold  and  without  Burke's  usual  moral  fervor 
than  because  it  is  rich  and  majestic  and  va 
rious.  There  is  no  great  formal  difference  be 
tween  Burke's  style  and  Bolingbroke's  :  but  there 
is  a  great  moral  and  intellectual  difference.  When 
Burke  is  not  in  earnest  there  is  perhaps  no  impor 
tant  difference  at  all.  And  in  the  "  Vindication 
of  Natural  Society  "  Burke  is  not  in  earnest.  The 
book  is  not,  indeed,  a  parody,  and  its  satirical 
quality  is  much  too  covert  to  make  it  a  successful 
satire.  Much  that  Burke  urges  against  civil 
society  he  could  urge  in  good  faith,  and  his  mind 
works  soberly  upon  it.  It  is  only  the  main  thesis 
that  he  does  not  seriously  mean.  The  rest  he  might 
have  meant  as  Bolingbroke  would  have  meant  it. 

The  essay  on  The  Sublime  and  Beautiful,  though 
much  admired  by  so  great  a  master  as  Lessing,  has 
not  worn  very  well  as  philosophy.  It  is  full,  how 
ever,  of  acute  and  interesting  observations,  and  is 


120     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

adorned  in  parts  with  touches  of  rich  color  put  on 
with  the  authentic  strokes  of  a  master.  We  pre 
serve  it,  perhaps,  only  because  Burke  wrote  it ; 
and  yet  when  we  read  it  we  feel  inclined  to  pro 
nounce  it  worth  keeping  for  its  own  sake. 

Both  these  essays  were  apprentice  work.  Burke 
was  trying  his  hand.  They  make  us  the  more 
curious  about  the  conditions  of  what  must  have 
been  a  notable  apprenticeship.  Young  Burke 
must  have  gone  to  school  to  the  world  in  a  way 
worth  knowing.  But  we  cannot  know,  and  that 's 
the  end  on 't.  Probably  even  William  Burke, 
Edmund's  companion,  could  give  us  no  very  satis 
factory  account  of  the  matter.  The  explanation 
lay  in  what  he  thought  and  not  in  what  he  did  as 
he  knocked  about  the  world. 

The  company  Burke  kept  was  as  singular  as  his 
talents,  though  scarcely  so  eminent.  We  speak  of 
"  Burke,"  but  the  London  of  his  day  spoke  of  "  the 
Burkes,"  meaning  William,  who  may  or  may  not 
have  been  Edmund's  kinsman,  Edmund  himself, 
and  Richard,  Edmund's  younger  brother,  who  had 
followed  him  to  London  to  become,  to  say  truth,  an 
adventurer  emphatically  not  of  the  elevated  sort. 
Edmund  was  destined  to  become  the  leader  of  Eng 
land's  thought  in  more  than  one  great  matter  of 
policy,  and  has  remained  a  master  among  all  who 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     121 

think  profoundly  upon  public  affairs  ;  but  William 
was  for  long  the  leader  and  master  of  "  the  Burkes." 
He  was  English  born ;  had  been  in  Westminster 
School ;  and  had  probably  just  come  out  from 
Christ  Church,  Oxford,  when  he  became  the  com 
panion  of  Edmund's  wanderings.  He  was  a  man 
of  intellect  and  literary  power  enough  to  be  deemed 
the  possible  author  of  the  "  Letters  of  Junius ;  "  he 
was  born  moreover  with  an  eye  for  the  ways  of 
the  world,  and  could  push  his  own  fortunes  with  an 
unhesitating  hand.  It  was  he  who  first  got  public 
office,  and  it  was  he  who  formed  the  influential 
connections  which  got  Edmund  into  Parliament. 
He  himself  entered  the  House  at  the  same  time, 
and  remained  there,  a  useful  party  member,  for 
some  eight  years.  He  made  those  from  whom  he 
sought  favors  dislike  him  for  his  audacity  in  demand 
ing  the  utmost,  and  more  than  the  utmost,  that  he 
could  possibly  hope  to  get ;  but  he  seems  to  have 
made  those  whom  he  served  love  him  with  a  very 
earnest  attachment.  He  was  self-seeking ;  but  he 
was  capable  of  generosity,  to  the  point  of  self-sac 
rifice  even,  when  he  wished  to  help  his  friend.  He 
early  formed  a  partnership  with  Richard  Burke  in 
immense  stock- jobbing  speculations  in  the  securities 
of  the  East  India  Company ;  but  he  also  formed  a 
literary  partnership  with  Edmund  in  the  prepa- 


122     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

ration  of  a  sketch  of  the  European  settlements  in 
America,  and  made  himself  respected  as  a  strong 
party  writer  in  various  pamphlets  on  questions  of 
the  day.  He  could  unite  the  two  brothers  by  spec 
ulating  with  the  one  and  thinking  with  the  other. 

Such  were  "  the  Burkes."  Edmund's  home  was 
always  the  home  also  of  the  other  two,  whenever 
they  wished  to  make  it  so ;  the  strongest  personal 
affection,  avowed  always  by  Edmund  with  his  char 
acteristic  generous  warmth,  bound  the  three  men 
together ;  their  purses  they  had  in  common.  Ed 
mund  was  not  expected,  apparently,  to  take  part 
in  the  speculations  which  held  William  and  Rich 
ard  together ;  something  held  him  aloof  to  which 
they  consented,  —  some  natural  separateness  of 
mind  and  character  which  they  evidently  accepted 
and  respected.  There  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
been  any  aloofness  of  disposition  on  Edmund's 
part.  There  is  something  in  an  Irishman,  —  even 
in  an  Irishman  who  holds  himself  to  the  strictest 
code  of  upright  conduct,  —  which  forbids  his  act 
ing  as  moral  censor  upon  others.  He  can  love  a 
man  none  the  less  for  generous  and  manly  qualities 
because  that  man  does  what  he  himself  would  not 
do.  Burke,  moreover,  had  an  easy  standard  all 
his  life  about  accepting  money  favors.  He  seems 
to  have  felt  somehow  that  his  intense  and  whole- 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     123 

hearted  devotion  to  his  friends  justified  gifts  and 
forgiven  loans  of  money  from  them.  He  shared 
the  prosperity  of  his  kinsmen  without  compunction, 
using  what  he  got  most  liberally  for  the  assistance 
of  others  ;  and  when  their  fortunes  came  to  a  sud 
den  ruin,  he  helped  them  with  what  he  had.  We 
ought  long  ago  to  have  learned  that  the  purest  mo 
tives  and  the  most  elevated  standards  of  conduct 
may  go  along  with  a  singular  laxness  of  moral  de 
tail  in  some  men ;  and  that  such  characters  will 
often  constrain  us  to  love  them  to  the  point  of  jus 
tifying  everything  that  they  ever  did.  Edmund 
Burke's  close  union  with  William  and  Richard 
does  not  present  the  least  obstacle  to  our  admira 
tion  for  the  noble  qualities  of  mind  and  heart 
which  he  so  conspicuously  possessed,  or  make  us 
for  a  moment  doubt  the  thorough  disinterestedness 
of  his  great  career. 

Burke's  marriage  was  a  very  happy  one.  Mrs. 
Burke's  thoroughly  sweet  temperament  acted  as  a 
very  grateful  and  potent  charm  to  soothe  her  hus 
band's  mind  when  shaken  by  the  agitations  of  public 
affairs  ;  her  quiet  capacity  for  domestic  manage 
ment  relieved  him  of  many  small  cares  which  might 
have  added  to  his  burdens.  Her  affection  satisfied 
his  ardent  nature.  He  speaks  of  her  in  his  will  as 
"  my  entirely  beloved  and  incomparable  wife,"  and 


124     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

every  glimpse  we  get  of  their  home  life  confirms  the 
estimate.  After  his  marriage  the  most  serious  part 
of  his  intellectual  life  begins  ;  the  commanding  pas 
sion  of  his  mind  is  disclosed.  He  turns  away  from 
philosophical  amusements  to  public  affairs.  In 
1757  appeared  "  An  Account  of  the  European  Set 
tlements  in  America,"  which  William  Burke  had 
doubtless  written,  but  which  Edmund  had  almost 
certainly  radically  revised ;  and  Edmund  himself 
published  the  first  part  of  "  An  Abridgment  of  the 
History  of  England  "  which  he  never  completed.  In 
1758,  he  proposed  to  Dodsley,  the  publisher,  a  yearly 
volume,  to  be  known  as  the  "  Annual  Kegister," 
which  should  chronicle  and  discuss  the  affairs  of 
England  and  the  Continent.  It  was  the  period  of 
the  Seven  Years'  War,  which  meant  for  England  a 
sharp  and  glorious  contest  with  France  for  the  pos 
session  of  America.  Burke  was  willing  to  write 
the  annals  of  the  critical  year  1758  for  a  hundred 
pounds;  and  so,  in  1759,  the  first  volume  of  the 
"  Annual  Register  "  appeared ;  and  the  plan  then 
so  wisely  conceived  has  yielded  its  annual  volume 
to  the  present  day.  Burke  never  acknowledged  his 
connection  with  this  great  work,  —  he  never  pub 
licly  recognized  anything  he  had  done  upon  contract 
for  the  publishers,  —  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  for 
very  many  years  his  was  the  presiding  and  plan- 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     125 

ning  mind  in  the  production  of  the  "  Register."  For 
the  first  few  years  of  its  life  he  probably  wrote  the 
whole  of  the  record  of  events  with  his  own  hand. 
It  was  a  more  useful  apprenticeship  than  that  in 
philosophy.  It  gave  him  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  affairs  which  must  have  served  as  a  direct 
preparation  for  the  great  contributions  he  was  des 
tined  to  make  to  the  mind  and  policy  of  the  Whig 
party. 

But  this,  even  in  addition  to  other  hack  work 
for  the  booksellers,  did  not  keep  Burke  out  of  pe 
cuniary  straits.  He  sought,  but  failed  to  get,  an 
appointment  as  consul  at  Madrid,  using  the  interest 
of  Dr.  Markham,  William's  master  at  Westminster 
School ;  and  then  he  engaged  himself  as  a  sort  of 
private  secretary  or  literary  attendant  to  William 
Gerard  Hamilton,  whom  he  served,  apparently  to 
the  almost  entire  exclusion  of  all  other  employ 
ments,  for  some  four  years,  going  with  him  for  a 
season  to  Ireland,  where  Hamilton  for  a  time  held 
the  appointment  of  Secretary  to  the  Lord  Lieuten 
ant.  Hamilton  is  described  by  one  of  Burke's 
friends  as  "  a  sullen,  vain,  proud,  selfish,  cankered- 
hearted,  envious  reptile,"  and  Mr.  Morley  says  that 
there  is  "  not  a  word  too  many  nor  too  strong  in 
the  description."  At  any  rate,  Burke's  proud 
spirit  presently  revolted  from  further  service,  and 


126     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

he  threw  up  a  pension  of  three  hundred  pounds 
which  Hamilton  had  obtained  for  him  rather  than 
retain  any  connection  with  the  man,  or  remain 
under  any  sort  of  obligation  to  him.  In  the  mean 
time,  however,  his  relations  with  Hamilton  had  put- 
him  in  the  way  of  meeting  many  public  men  of 
weight  and  influence,  and  he  had  gotten  his  first 
direct  introduction  to  the  world  of  affairs. 

It  was  1764  when  he  shook  himself  free  from 
this  connection.  1764  is  a  year  to  be  marked  in 
English  literary  annals.  It  was  in  the  spring  of 
that  year  that  that  most  celebrated  of  literary  clubs 
was  formed  at  the  Turk's  Head  Tavern,  Gerrard 
Street,  Soho,  by  notable  good  company  :  Dr.  John 
son,  Garrick,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Goldsmith, 
Sheridan,  Gibbon,  Dr.  Barnard,  Beauclerk,  Lang- 
ton,  —  we  know  them  all ;  for  has  not  Boswell 
given  us  the  freedom  of  the  Club  and  made  us  de 
lighted  participants  in  its  conversations  and  diver 
sions?  Into  this  company  Burke  was  taken  at 
once.  His  writings  had  immediately  attracted  the 
attention  of  such  men  as  these,  and  had  promptly 
procured  him  an  introduction  into  literary  society. 
His  powers  told  nowhere  more  brilliantly  than  in 
conversation.  "  It  is  when  you  come  close  to  a 
man  in  conversation,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  that  you 
discover  what  his  real  abilities  are.  To  make  a 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     127 

speech  in  an  assembly  is  a  sort  of  knack.  Now 
I  honor  Thurlow  ;  Thurlow  is  a  fine  fellow,  he 
fairly  puts  his  mind  to  yours."  There  can  be  no 
disputing  the  dictum  of  the  greatest  master  of  con 
versation  :  and  the  admirer  of  Burke  must  be  will 
ing  to  accept  it,  at  any  rate  for  the  nonce,  for 
Johnson  admitted  that  Burke  invariably  put  him 
on  his  mettle.  "  That  fellow,"  he  exclaimed,  "calls 
forth  all  my  powers !  "  "  Burke's  talk,"  he  said, 
"  is  the  ebullition  of  his  mind ;  he  does  not  talk 
from  a  desire  of  distinction,  but  because  his  mind 
is  full ;  he  is  never  humdrum,  never  unwilling  to 
talk,  nor  in  haste  to  leave  off."  The  redoubtable 
doctor  loved  a  worthy  antagonist  in  the  great  game 
of  conversation,  and  he  always  gave  Burke  his  un 
grudging  admiration.  When  he  lay  dying,  Burke 
visited  his  bedside,  and,  finding  Johnson  very 
weak,  anxiously  expressed  the  hope  that  his  pres 
ence  cost  him  no  inconvenience.  "  I  must  be  in  a 
wretched  state  indeed,"  cried  the  great-hearted  old 
man,  "when  your  company  would  not  be  a  delight 
to  me."  It  was  short  work  for  Burke  to  get  the 
admiration  of  the  company  at  the  Turk's  Head. 
But  he  did  much  more  than  that :  he  won  their  de 
voted  affection.  Goldsmith  said  that  Burke  wound 
his  way  into  a  subject  like  a  serpent ;  but  he  made 
his  way  straight  into  the  hearts  of  his  friends. 


128     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

/    His  powers  are  all  of  a  piece  :  his  heart  is  inextri 
cably  mixed  up  with  his  mind  :  his  opinions  are 
V        immediately  transmuted  into  convictions :  he   does 
\     not  talk  for  distinction,  because  he  does  not  use  his 
/     mind  for  the  mere  intellectual  pleasure  of  it,  but 
/       because  he  also  deeply  feels  what  he  thinks.     He 
V,    speaks  without  calculation,  almost  impulsively. 

That  is  the  reason  why  we  can  be  so  sure  of  the 
essential  purity  of  his  nature  from  the  character  of 
his  writings.  They  are  not  purely  intellectual  pro 
ductions  :  there  is  no  page  of  abstract  reasoning 
ta  be  frmml  in  TUrU-A  His  mind  works  upon  con» 
crete  objects,  and  he  speaks  always  with  a  certain 
jiassjon,  as  if  his  affections  were  involved.  He  is 
irritated  by  opposition,  because  opposition  in  the 
field  of  affairs,  in  which  his  mind  operates,  touches 
some  interest  that  is  dear  to  him.  Noble  generali 
zations,  it  is  true,  everywhere  broaden  his  matter : 
there  is  no  more  philosophical  writer  in  English 
in  the  field  of  politics  than  Burke.  But  look,  and 
you  shall  see  that  his  generalizations  are  never  de 
rived  from  abstract  premises.  The  reasoning,  is 
ipon  familiar  matter  of  to-day.  He  is  simply  tak- 
ig  questions  of  the  moment  to  the  light,  holding 
lem  up  to  be  seen  where  great  principles  of  con- 
Luct  may  shine  upon  them  from  the  general  ex 
perience  of  the  race.  He  is  not  constructing 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     129 

systems  of  thought, Jbut_§imply  -stripping  thought 
of  its  accidental  features.  He  is  even  deeply  im 
patient  of  abstractions  in  political  reasoning,  so 
passionately  i7~he  devotecTto  whatTTs  practicable, 
and  fit  for  wise  men  to  do.  To  know  such  a  man 
is  to  experience  all  the  warmer  forces  of  the  mind, 
to  feel  the  generous  and  cheering  heat  of  character ; 
and  all  noble  natures  will  love  such  a  man,  because 
of  kinship  of  quality.  All  noble  natures  that  came 
close  to  Burke  did  love  him  and  cherish  their 
knowledge  of  him.  They  loaned  him  money  with 
out  stint,  and  then  forgave  him  the  loans,  as  if  it 
were  a  privilege  to  help  him,  and  no  way  unnatural 
that  he  should  never  return  what  he  received,  find 
ing  his  spirit  made  for  fraternal,  not  for  commer 
cial  relations. 

It  is  pleasing,  as  it  is  also  a  little  touching,  to 
see  how  his  companions  thus  freely  accorded  to 
Burke  the  immunities  and  prerogatives  of  a  prince 
amongst  them.  No  one  failed  to  perceive  how 
large  and  imperial  he  was,  alike  in  natural  gifts 
and  in  the  wonderful  range  of  his  varied  acquire 
ments.  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  though  he  very 
earnestly  combated  some  of  Burke's  views,  in 
tensely  admired  his  greatness.  He  declared  that 
Gibbon  "  might  have  been  taken  from  a  corner  of 
Burke's  mind  without  ever  being  missed."  "  A  wit 


130     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

said  of  Gibbon's  '  Autobiography '  that  he  did  not 
know  the  difference  between  himself  and  the  Roman 
Empire.  He  has  narrated  his  '  progressions  from 
London  to  Buriton  and  from  Buriton  to  London  ' 
in  the  same  monotonous,  majestic  periods  that  he 
recorded  the  fall  of  states  and  empires."  And 
we  certainly  feel  a  sense  of  incongruity  :  the  two 
subjects,  we  perceive,  are  hardly  commensurable. 
Perhaps  in  Burke' s  case  we  should  have  felt  differ 
ently,  —  we  do  feel  differently.  In  that  extraordi 
nary  "  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord,"  in  which  he  defends 
his  pension  so  proudly  against  the  animadversions 
of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  how  magnificently  he  speaks 
of  his  services  to  the  country  ;  how  proud  and  ma 
jestic  a  piece  of  autobiography  it  is!  How  insig 
nificant  does  the  ancient  house  of  Bedford  seem, 
with  all  its  long  generations,  as  compared  with  this 
single  and  now  lonely  man,  without  distinguished 
v  ancestry  or  hope  of  posterity  !  He  speaks  grandly 
about  himself,  as  about  everything ;  and  yet  I  see 
no  disparity  between  the  subject  and  the  manner  ! 
Outside  the  small  circle  of  those  who  knew  and 
loved  him,  his  generation  did  not  wholly  perceive 
this.  There  seemed  a  touch  of  pretension  in  this 
proud  tone  taken  by  a  man  who  had  never  held 
high  office  or  exercised  great  power.  He  had  made 
great  speeches,  indeed,  no  one  denied  that ;  he  had 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     131 

written  great  party  pamphlets,  —  that  everybody 
knew;  his  had  been  the  intellectual  force  within 
the  group  of  Whigs  that  followed  Lord  Rocking- 
ham,  —  that,  too,  the  world  in  general  perceived 
and  acknowledged;  and  when  he  died,  England 
knew  the  man  who  had  gone  to  be  a  great  man. 
But,  for  all  that,  his  tone  must,  in  his  generation, 
have  seemed  disproportioned  to  the  part  he  had 
played.  His  great  authority  is  over  us  rather  than  ^^ 
over  the  men  of  his  own  day. 

Burke  had  the  thoughts  of  a  great  statesman, 
and  uttered  them  with  unapproachable  nobility ; 
but  he  never  wielded  the  power  of  a  great  states 
man.  He  was  kept  always  in  the  background  in  .  ' 
active  politics,  in  minor  posts,  and  employed  upon 
subordinate  functions.  This  would  be  a  singular 
circumstance,  if  there  were  any  novelty  in  it ;  but 
the  practice  of  keeping  men  of  insignificant  birth 
out  of  the  great  offices  was  a  practice  which  had 
"  broadened  down  from  precedent  to  precedent " 
until  it  had  become  too  strong  for  even  Burke  to 
breast  or  stem.  Perhaps,  too,  there  were  faults  of 
temper  which  rendered  Burke  unfit  to  exercise 
authority  in  directing  the  details,  and  determining 
the  practical  measures,  of  public  policy :  —  but  we 
shall  look  into  that  presently. 
,  In  July,  1765,  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham 


132     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

became  prime  minister  of  England,  and  Burke 
became  his  private  secretary.  He  owed  his  intro 
duction  to  Lord  Rockingham,  as  usual,  to  the  good 
offices  of  William  Burke,  who  seems  to  have  found 
means  of  knowing  everybody  it  was  to  the  interest 
of  "  the  Burkes  "  to  know.  A  more  fortunate  con 
nection  could  hardly  have  been  made.  Lord  Rock- 
ingham,  though  not  a  man  of  original  powers,  was 
a  man  of  the  greatest  simplicity  and  nobleness  of 
character,  and,  like  most  upright  men,  knew  how 
to  trust  other  men.  He  gave  Burke  immediate 
proof  of  his  manly  qualities.  The  scheming  old 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  ought  to  have  been  a 
connoisseur  in  low  men,  mistook  Burke  for  one. 
Shocked  that  this  obscurely  born  and  unknown  fel 
low  should  be  accorded  confidential  relations  by 
Lord  Rockingham,  he  hurried  to  his  lordship  with 
an  assortment  of  hastily  selected  slanders  against 
Burke.  His  real  name,  he  reported,  was  O'Bourke ; 
he  was  an  Irish  adventurer  without  character,  and 
a  rank  Papist  to  boot ;  it  would  ruin  the  admin 
istration  to  have  such  a  man  connected  with  the 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  Rockingham,  with 
great  good  sense  and  frankness,  took  the  whole 
matter  at  once  to  Burke ;  was  entirely  satisfied  by 
Burke's  denials;  and  admitted  him  immediately 
to  intimate  relations  of  warm  personal  friendship 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY.     133 

which  only  death  broke  off.  William  Burke  ob 
tained  for  himself  an  Undersecretaryship  of  State 
and  arranged  with  Lord  Verney,  at  that  time  his 
partner  in  East  India  speculations,  that  two  of  his 
lordship's  parliamentary  boroughs  should  be  put 
at  his  and  Edmund's  disposal.  Edmund  Burke, 
accordingly,  entered  Parliament  for  the  borough 
of  Wendover  on  the  14th  of  January,  1766,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-seven,  and  in  the  first  vigor  of 
his  powers. 

"Now  we  who  know  Burke,"  announced  Dr. 
Johnson,  "  know  that  he  will  be  one  of  the  first 
men  in  the  country."  Burke  promptly  fulfilled 
the  prediction.  He  made  a  speech  before  he  had 
been  in  the  House  two  weeks  ;  a  speech  that  made 
him  at  once  a  marked  man.  His  health  was  now 
firmly  established ;  he  had  a  commanding  physique ; 
his  figure  was  tall  and  muscular,  and  his  bearing 
full  of  a  dignity  which  had  a  touch  almost  of  haugh 
tiness  in  it.  Although  his  action  was  angular  and 
awkward,  his  extraordinary  richness  and  fluency  of 
utterance  drew  the  attention  away  from  what  he 
was  doing  to  what  he  was  saying.  His  voice  was 
harsh,  and  did  not  harmonize  with  the  melodious 
measures  in  which  his  words  poured  forth  ;  but  it 
was  of  unusual  compass,  and  carried  in  it  a  sense 
of  confidence  and  power.  His  utterance  was  too 


134     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

rapid,  his  thought  bore  him  too  impulsively  for 
ward,  but  the  pregnant  matter  he  spoke  "  filled  the 
town  with  wonder."  The  House  was  excited  by 
new  sensations.  Members  were  astonished  to  re 
cognize  a  broad  philosophy  of  politics  running 
through  this  ardent  man's  speeches.  They  felt  the 
refreshment  of  the  wide  outlook  he  gave  them,  and 
were  conscious  of  catching  glimpses  of  excellent 
matter  for  reflection  at  every  turn  of  his  hurrying 
thought.  They  wearied  of  it,  indeed,  after  a  while : 
the  pace  was  too  hard  for  most  of  his  hearers,  and 
they  finally  gave  over  following  him  when  the 
novelty  and  first  excitement  of  the  exercise  had 
worn  off.  He  too  easily  lost  sight  of  his  audience 
in  his  search  for  principles,  and  they  resented  his 
neglect  of  them,  his  indifference  to  their  tastes. 
They  felt  his  lofty  style  of  reasoning^  as  a  sort  of 
rebuke,  and  deemed  ^is^iscursJYa-jd«dom  ouk-ef 
place  amidst  their  own  thoughts  of  imperative  per- 
sonal_and  partyinterest.  He  had,  before  very 
long,  to  accustom  himself,  therefore,  to  speak  to  an 
empty  House  and  subsequent  generations.  His 
opponents  never,  indeed,  managed  to  feel  quite 
easy  under  his  attacks :  his  arrows  sought  out  their 
weak  places  to  the  quick,  and  they  winced  even 
when  they  coughed  or  seemed  indifferent ;  but  they 
comforted  themselves  with  the  thought  that  the 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     135 

orator  was  also  tedious  and  irritating  to  his  own 
friends,  teasing  them  too  with  keen  rebukes  and 
vexatious  admonitions.  The  high  and  wise  sort  of 
speaking  must  always  cause  uneasiness  in  a  political 
assembly.  The  more  equal  and  balanced  it  is,  the 
more  must  both  parties  be  threatened  with  reproof. 
I  would  not  be  understood  as  saying  that  Burke's 
speeches  were  impartial.  They  were  not.  He  had 
preferences  which  amounted  to  prejudices.  He 
was  always  an  intense  party  man.  But  then  he 
was  a  party  man  with  a  difference.  He  believed 
that  the  interests  of  England  were  bound  up  with 
the  fortunes  of  the  Rockingham  Whigs;  ,but_he 
did  not  separate  the  interests  of  his  party  and  the 
interests  oPhis  country.  He  ^cherished  party  con 
nections  because  he  conceived  them  to  be  absolutely 
necessary  for  effective  public  service.  "  Where 
men  are  not  acquainted  with  each  other's  princi 
ples,"  he  said,  unor  experienced  in  each  other's 
talents,  nor  at  all  practiced  in  their  mutual  habi 
tudes  or  dispositions  by  joint  efforts  in  business; 
no  personal  confidence,  no  friendship,  no  common 
interest,  subsisting  among  them ;  it  is  evidently 
impossible  that  they  can  act  a  public  part  with 
uniformity,  perseverance,  or  efficacy.  In  a  con 
nection,  the  most  inconsiderable  man,  by  adding  to 
the  weight  of  the  whole,  has  his  value,  and  his  use ; 


136     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

out  of  it,  the  greatest  talents  are  wholly  unservice 
able  to  the  public."  "  When  bad  men  combine, 
the  good  must  associate."  "It  is  not  enough  in  a 
situation  of  trust  in  the  commonwealth,  that  a  man 
means  well  to  his  country  ;  it  is  not  enough  that  in 
his  single  person  he  never  did  an  evil  act,  but 
always  voted  according  to  his  conscience,  and  even 
harangued  against  every  design  which  he  appre 
hended  to  be  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  his 
country.  .  .  .  Duty  demands  and  requires,  that 
what  is  right  should  not  only  be  made  known,  but 
made  prevalent ;  that  what  is  evil  should  not  only 
be  detected,  but  defeated.  When  the  public  man 
omits  to  put  himself  in  a  situation  of  doing  his 
duty  with  effect,  it  is  an  omission  that  frustrates 
the  purposes  of  his  trust  almost  as  much  as  if  he 
had  formally  betrayed  it."  Burke  believed  the 
Kockingham  Whigs  to  be  a  combination  of  good 
men,  and  he  felt  that  he  ought  to  sacrifice  some 
thing  to  keep  himself  in  their  connection.  He 
regarded  them  as  men  who  "  believed  private  honor 
to  be  the  foundation  of  public  trust ;  that  friend 
ship  was  no  mean  step  towards  patriotism ;  that  he 
who,  in  the  common  intercourse  of  life,  showed  he 
regarded  somebody  besides  himself,  when  he  came 
to  act  in  a  public  situation,  might  probably  consult 
some  other  interest  than  his  own."  He  admitted 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     137 

that  such  confederacies  had  often  "  a  narrow,  big 
oted,  and  prescriptive  spirit ;  "  "  but,  where  duty 
renders  a  critical  situation  a  necessary  one,"  he 
said,  "it  is  our  business  to  keep  free  from  the  evils 
attendant  upon  it ;  and  not  to  fly  from  the  situation 
itself.  If  a  fortress  is  seated  in  an  unwholesome 
air,  an  officer  of  the  garrison  is  obliged  to  be 
attentive  to  his  health,  but  he  must  not  desert  his 
station."  "  A  party,"  he  declared,  "  is  a  body  of 
men  united  for  promoting  by  their  joint  endeavors 
the  national  interest  upon  some  particular  principle 
in  which  they  are  all  agreed."  "Men  thinking 
freely,  will,"  he  very  well  knew,  "  in  particular  in 
stances,  think  differently.  But  still  as  the  greater 
part  of  the  measures  which  arise  in  the  course  of 
public  business  are  related  to,  or  dependent  on, 
some  great,  leading,  general  principles  in  govern 
ment,  a  man  must  be  peculiarly  unfortunate  in  the 
choice  of  his  political  company,  if  he  does  not  agree 
with  them  at  least  nine  times  in  ten.  If  he  does 
not  concur  in  these  general  principles  upon  which 
the  party  is  founded,  and  which  necessarily  draw 
on  a  concurrence  in  their  application,  he  ought 
from  the  beginning  to  have  chosen  some  other, 
more  conformable  to  his  opinions.  When  the 
question  is  in  its  nature  doubtful,  or  not  very 
material,  the  modesty  which  becomes  an  individual, 


138     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

and  that  partiality  which  becomes  a  well-chosen 
friendship,  will  frequently  bring  on  an  acquiescence 
in  the  general  sentiment.  Thus  the  disagreement 
will  naturally  be  rare ;  it  will  be  only  enough  to 
indulge  freedom,  without  violating  concord,  or  dis 
turbing  arrangement." 

Certainly  there  were  no  party  prizes  for  Burke. 
During  much  the  greater  part  of  his  career  the 
party  to  which  he  adhered  was  in  opposition  ;  and 
even  when  in  office  it  had  only  small  favors  for 
him.  Even  his  best  friends  advised  against  his 
appointment  to  any  of  the  great  offices  of  state, 
deeming  him  too  intemperate  and  unpractical. 
And  yet  the  intensity  of  his  devotion  to  his  party 
never  abated  a  jot.  Assuredly  there  was  never  a 
less  selfish  allegiance.  His  devotion  was  for  the 
principles  of  his  party,  as  he  conceived  and  con 
structed  them.  It  was  a  moral  and  intellectual 
devotion.  He  had  embarked  all  his  spirit's  for 
tunes  in  the  enterprise.  Faults  he  unquestionably 
had,  which  seemed  very  grave.  He  was  passionate 
sometimes  beyond  all  bounds :  he  seriously  fright 
ened  cautious  and  practical  men  by  his  haste  and 
vehemence  in  pressing  his  views  for  acceptance. 
He  was  capable  of  falling,  upon  occasion,  into  a 
very  frenzy  of  excitement  in  the  midst  of  debate, 
when  he  would  often  shock  moderate  men  by  the 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     139 

ungoverned  license  of  his  language.  But  his  friends 
were  as  much  to  blame  for  these  outbreaks  as  he 
was.  They  cut  him  to  the  quick  by  the  way  in 
which  they  criticised  and  misunderstood  him.  His 
heart  was  maddened  by  the  pain  of  their  neglect 
of  his  just  claims  to  their  confidence.  They  seemed 
often  to  use  him  without  trusting  him,  and  their 
slights  were  intolerable  to  his  proud  spirit.  Prac 
tically,  and  upon  a  narrow  scale  of  expediency, 
they  may  have  been  right :  perhaps  he  was  not  cir 
cumspect  enough  to  be  made  a  responsible  head  of 
administration.  Unquestionably,  too,  they  loved 
him  and  meant  him  no  unkindness.  But  it  was 
none  the  less  tragical  to  treat  such  a  man  in  such 
a  fashion.  They  may  possibly  have  temporarily 
served  their  country  by  denying  to  Burke  full  pub 
lic  acknowledgment  of  his  great  services ;  but  they 
cruelly  wounded  a  great  spirit,  and  they  hardly 
served  mankind. 

They  did  Burke  an  injustice,  moreover.  They 
greatly  underrated  his  practical  powers.  In  such 
offices  as  he  was  permitted  to  hold  he  showed  in 
actual  administration  the  same  extraordinary  mas 
tery  of  masses  of  detail  which  was  the  foundation 
of  his  unapproachable  mastery  of  general  principles 
in  his  thinking.  His  thought  was  always  immersed 
in  matter,  and  concrete  detail  did  not  confuse  him 


140     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY. 

when  he  touched  it  any  more  than  it  did  when  he 
medifated  upon  it.  Immediate  contact  with  affairs 
always  steadied  his  judgment.  He  was  habitually 
temperate  in  the  conduct  of  business.  It  was  only 
in  speech  and  when  debating  matters  that  stirred 
the  depths  of  his  nature  that  he  gave  way  to  uncal- 
culating  fervor.  He  was  intemperate  in  his  emo 
tions,  but  seldom  in  his  actions.  He  could,  and 
did,  write  calm  state  papers  in  the  very  midst  and 
heat  of  parliamentary  affairs  that  subjected  him  to 
the  fiercest  excitements.  He  was  eminently  capa 
ble  of  counsel  as  well  as  of  invective. 

He  served  his  party  in  no  servile  fashion,  for  all 
he  adhered  to  it  with  such  devotion.  He  sacrificed 
his  intellectual  independence  as  little  as  his  person 
ality  in  taking  intimate  part  in  its  counsels.  He 
gave  it  principles,  indeed,  quite  as  often  as  he 
accepted  principles  from  it.  In  the  final  efforts  of 
his  life,  when  he  engaged  every  faculty  of  his  mind 
in  the  contest  that  he  waged  with  such  magnificent 
wrath  against  the  French  revolutionary  spirit,  he 
gave  tone  to  all  English  thought,  and  direction  to 
many  of  the  graver  issues  of  international  policy. 
Rejected  oftentimes  by  his  party,  he  has  at  length 
been  accepted  by  the  world. 

His  habitual  identification  with  opposition  rather 
than  with  the  government  gave  him  a  certain  ad- 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY.     141 

vantage.  It  relaxed  party  discipline  and  indulged 
his  independence.  It  gave  leave,  too,  to  the  better 
efforts  of  his  genius :  for  in  opposition  it  is  princi 
ples  that  tell,  and  Burke  was  first  and  last  a  master 
of  principles.  Government  is  a  matter  of  practical 
detail,  as  well  as  of  general  measures;  but  the 
criticism  of  government  very  naturally  becomes  a 
matter  of  the  application  of  general  principles,  as 
standards  rather  than  as  practical  means  of  policy. 
Four  questions  absorbed  the  energies  of  Burke's 
life  and  must  always  be  associated  with  his  fame. 
These  were,  the  ^American  war  for  independence ; 
administrative  reform  in  the  English  home  govern 
ment^  ;  reform  in  the  government  of  India ;  and  the 
profound  political  agitations  which  attended  J;he 
French  Revolution.  Other  questions  he  studied, 
deeply  pondered,  and  greatly  illuminated,  but  upon 
these  four  he  expended  the  full  strength  of  his 
magnificent  powers.  There  is  in  his  treatment  of 
these  subjects  a  singular  consistency,  a  very  admi 
rable  simplicity  of  standard.  It  has  been  said,  and 
it  is  true,  that  Bu^ke.had  no  system. JQ£ political 
philosophy,  ffe  waff  afraid  of  abstract  system-m 
political  thought,  for  he  perceived  that  questions 
of  government  are  moral  questions,  and  that  ques- 
tions  of  morals  cannot  always  be^ojijre^LwiliL Jihe 
rules  of  logic,  but  run  through  as  many^rangfia,  of 


142     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

variety  as  the  circumstances  of  life  itself.  "  Man 
acTsTSn  adequate  motives  relative  to  his  interest," 
he  said,  "and  not  on  metaphysical  speculations. 
Aristotle,  the  great  master  of  reasoning,  cautions 
us,  and  with  great  weight  and  propriety,  against 
this  species  of  delusive  geometrical  accuracy  in 
moral  arguments,  as  the  most  fallacious  of  all 
sophistry."  And  yet  Burke  unquestionably  had  a 
very  definite  and  determinable  system  of  thought, 
which  was  none  the  less  a  system  for  being  based 
upon  concrete,  and  not  upon  abstract  premises. 
It  is  said  by  some  writers  (even  by  so  eminent  a 
writer  as  Buckle)  that  in  his  later  years  Burke's 
mind  lost  its  balance  and  that  he  reasoned  as  if  he 
were  insane ;  and  the  proof  assigned  is,  that  he,  a 
man  who  loved  liberty,  violently  condemned,  not 
the  terrors  only,  —  that  of  course,  —  but  the  very 
principles  of  the  French  Revolution.  But  to  reason 
thus  is  to  convict  one's  self  of  an  utter  lack  of  com 
prehension  of  Burke's  mind  and  motives :  as  a  very 
brief  examination  of  his  course  upon  the  four  great 
questions  I  have  mentioned  will  show. 

From  first  to  lastBurke's  thought  is  conserva 
tive,.  .  Let  his  attitude^with  regard  to  America 
serve  as  an  example.  He  took  his  stand,  as  every 
body  knows,  with  the  colonies,  against  the  mother 
country ;  but  his  object  was  not  revolutionary. 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     143 

He  did  not  deny  the  legal  right  of  England  to  tax 
the  colonies  (we  no  longer  deny  it  ourselves),  but 
he  wished  to  preserve  the  empire,  and  he  saw  that 
to  insist  upon  the  right  of  taxation  would  be  irre 
vocably  to  break  up  the  empire,  when  dealing  with 
such  a  people  as  the  Americans.  He  pointed  out 
the  strong  and  increasing  numbers  of  the  colonists, 
their  high  spirit  in  enterprise,  their  jealous  love  of 
liberty,  and  the  indulgence  England  had  hitherto 
accorded  them  in  the  matter  of  self-government, 
permitting  them  in  effect  to  become  an  independ 
ent  people  in  respect  of  all  their  internal  affairs ; 
and  he  declared  the  result  matter  for  just  pride. 
"  Whilst  we  follow  them  among  the  tumbling 
mountains  of  ice,  and  behold  them  penetrating  into 
the  deepest  frozen  recesses  of  Hudson's  Bay  and 
Davis's  Straits,"  he  exclaimed,  in  a  famous  passage 
of  his  incomparable  speech  on  Conciliation  with 
America,  "  whilst  we  are  looking  for  them  beneath 
the  arctic  circle,  we  hear  that  they  have  pierced 
into  the  opposite  region  of  polar  cold,  that  they  are 
at  the  antipodes,  and  engaged  under  the  frozen 
serpent  of  the  South.  Falkland  Island,  which 
seemed  too  remote  and  romantic  an  object  for  the 
grasp  of  national  ambition,  is  but  a  stage  and  resting 
place  in  the  progress  of  their  victorious  industry. 
Nor  is  the  equinoctial  heat  more  discouraging  to 


144     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

them  than  the  accumulated  winter  of  both  the  poles. 
We  know  that  whilst  some  of  them  draw  the  line 
and   strike   the  harpoon   on   the   coast   of  Africa, 
others  run  the  longitude,  and  pursue  their  gigantic 
game  along  the  coast  of  Brazil.     No  sea  but  what 
is  vexed  by  their  fisheries.     No  climate  that  is  not 
witness  to  their  toils.     Neither  the  perseverance  of 
Holland,  nor  the  activity  of  France,  nor  the  dex 
terous    and    firm   sagacity   of    English    enterprise, 
ever    carried    this    most   perilous  mode    of   hardy 
industry  to  the  extent  to  which  it  has  been  pushed 
by  this  recent  people,  —  a  people  who  are  still,  as 
it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened 
into  the  bone  of  manhood.     When  I  contemplate 
these  things,  —  when  I  know  that  the  colonies  in 
general  owe  little  or  nothing  to  any  care  of  ours, 
and  that  they   are  not   squeezed   into   this  happy 
form  by  the  constraints  of  watchful  and  suspicious 
government,  but  that,  through  a  wise  and  salutary 
neglect,  a  generous  nature   has  been  suffered   to 
V      take  her  own  way  to  perfection,  —  when  I  reflect 
upon  these  effects,  when  I  see  how  profitable  they 
have  been  to  us,  I  feel  all  the  pride  of  power  sink, 
and  all  the  presumption  in  the  wisdom  of  human 
contrivances  melt  and  die  away  within  me,  —  my 
rigor  relents,  —  I  pardon  something  to  the  spirit 
of  liberty." 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     145 

"  I  think  it  necessary,"  he  insisted,  "  to  consider 
distinctly  the  true  nature  and  the  peculiar  circum 
stances  of  the  object  we  have  before  us  :  because, 
after  all  our  struggle,  whether  we  will  or  not,  we 
must  govern  America  according  to  that  nature  and 
those  circumstances,  and  not  according  to  our  own 
imaginations,  not  according  to  abstract  ideas  of 
right,  by  no  means  according  to  mere  general 
theories  of  government,  the  resort  to  which  appears 
to  me,  in  our  present  situation,  no  better  than 
arrant  trifling."  To  attempt  to  force  such  a  people 
would  be  a  course  of  idle  folly.  Force,  he  declared, 
would  not  only  be  an  odious  "  but  a  feeble  instru 
ment,  for  preserving  a  people  so  numerous,  so 
active,  so  growing,  so  spirited  as  this,  in  a  profita 
ble  and  subordinate  connection  with  "  England. 

"  First,  Sir,"  he  cried,  "  permit  me  to  observe, 
that  the  use  of  force  alone  is  but  temporary.  It 
may  subdue  for  a  moment ;  but  it  does  not  remove 
the  necessity  of  subduing  again :  and  a  nation  is 
not  governed  which  is  perpetually  to  be  conquered. 

"  My  next  objection  is  its  uncertainty.  Terror 
is  not  always  the  effect  of  force,  and  an  armament 
is  not  a  victory.  If  you  do  not  succeed,  you  are 
without  resource :  for,  conciliation  failing,  force 
remains ;  but,  force  failing,  no  further  hope  of 
reconciliation  is  left.  Power  and  authority  are 


146     INTERPRETER    OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

sometimes  bought  by  kindness  ;  but  they  can  never 
be  begged  as  alms  by  an  impoverished  and  defeated 
violence. 

"  A  further  objection  to  force  is,  that  you  impair 
the  object  by  your  very  endeavors  to  preserve  it. 
The  thing  you  fought  for  is  not  the  thing  you 
recover,  but  depreciated,  sunk,  wasted,  and  con 
sumed  in  the  contest.  Nothing  less  will  content 
me  than  whole  America.  I  do  not  choose  to  con 
sume  its  strength  along  with  our  own ;  for  in  all 
parts  it  is  the  British  strength  I  consume.  .  .  . 
Let  me  add,  that  I  do  not  choose  wholly  to  break 
the  American  spirit ;  because  it  is  the  spirit  that 
has  made  the  country. 

"  Lastly,  we  have  no  sort  of  experience  in  favor 
of  force  as  an  instrument  in  the  rule  of  our  colonies. 
Their  growth  and  their  utility  has  been  owing  to 
methods  altogether  different.  Our  ancient  indul 
gence  has  been  said  to  be  pursued  to  a  fault.  It 
may  be  so  ;  but  we  know,  if  feeling  is  evidence, 
that  our  fault  was  more  tolerable  than  our  attempt 
to  mend  it,  and  our  sin  far  more  salutary  than  our 
penitence." 

"  Obedience  is  what  makes  government,"  "  free 
dom,  and  not  servitude,  is  the  cure  of  anarchy," 
and  you  cannot  insist  upon  one  rule  of  obedience 
for  Englishmen  in  America  while  you  jealously 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     147 

maintain  another  for  Englishmen  in  England. 
"  For,  in  order  to  prove  that  the  Americans  have 
no  right  to  their  liberties,  we  are  every  day  en 
deavoring  to  subvert  the  maxims  which  preserve 
the  whole  spirit  of  our  own.  To  prove  that  the 
Americans  ought  not  to  be  free,  we  are  obliged  to 
depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself;  and  we 
never  seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage  over  them 
in  debate,  without  attacking  some  of  those  princi 
ples,  or  deriding  some  of  those  feelings,  for  which 
our  ancestors  have  shed  their  blood."  "  The  ques 
tion  with  me  is,  not  whether  you  have  a  right  to 
render  your  people  miserable,  but  whether  it  is  not 
your  interest  to  make  them  happy.  It  is  not  what 
a  lawyer  tells  me  I  may  do,  but  what  humanity, 
reason,  and  justice  tell  me  I  ought  to  do.  ... 
Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  absolute 
necessity  of  keeping  up  the  concord  of  this  empire 
by  a  unity  of  spirit,  though  in  a  diversity  of  opera 
tions,  that,  if  I  were  sure  that  the  colonists  had,  at 
their  leaving  this  country,  sealed  a  regular  com 
pact  of  servitude,  that  they  had  solemnly  abjured 
all  the  rights  of  citizens,  that  they  had  made  a  vow 
to  renounce  all  ideas  of  liberty  for  them  and  their 
posterity  to  all  generations,  yet  I  should  hold  my 
self  obliged  to  conform  to  the  temper  I  found  uni 
versally  prevalent  in  my  own  day,  and  to  govern 


148     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

two  million  of  men,  impatient  of  servitude,  on  the 
principles  of  freedom.  I  am  not  determining  a 
point  of  law ;  I  am  restoring  tranquillity  :  and  the 
general  character  and  situation  of  a  people  must 
determine  what  sort  of  government  is  fitted  for 
them.  That  point  nothing  else  can  or  ought  to 
determine."  "  All  government,  indeed  every  hu 
man  benefit  and  enjoyment,  every  virtue  and  every 
prudent  act,  is*  founded  on  compromise  and  barter. 
We  balance  inconveniences  ;  we  give  and  take ; 
we  remit  some  rights,  that  we  may  enjoy  others  ; 
and  we  choose  rather  to  be  happy  citizens  than 
subtle  disputants."  "  Magnanimity  in  politics  is 
not  seldom  the  truest  wisdom  ;  and  a  great  empire 
and  little  minds  go  ill  together." 

Here  you  have  the  whole  spirit  of  the  man,  and 
in  part  a  view  of  his  eminently  practical  system  of 
thought.  The  view  is  completed  when  you  advance 
with  him  to  other  subjects  of  policy.  He  pressed 
with  all  his  energy  for  radical  reforms  in  adminis 
tration,  but  he  earnestly  opposed  every  change  that 
might  touch  the  structure  of  the  constitution  itself. 
He  sought  to  secure  the  integrity  of  Parliament, 
not  by  changing  the  system  of  representation,  but 
by  cutting  out  all  roots  of  corruption.  He  pressed 
forward  with  the  most  ardent  in  all  plans  of  just 
reform,  but  he  held  back  with  the  most  conserva- 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY.     149 

tive  from  all  propositions  of  radical  change.  "  To 
innovate  is  not  to  reform,"  he  declared,  and  there 
is  "  a  marked  distinction  between  change  and  re 
formation.  The  former  alters  the  substance  of  the 
objects  themselves,  and  gets  rid  of  all  their  essen 
tial  good  as  well  as  of  all  the  accidental  evil  annexed 
to  them.  Change  is  novelty  ;  and  whether  it  is  to 
operate  any  one  of  the  effects  of  reformation  at  all, 
or  whether  it  may  not  contradict  the  very  princi 
ple  upon  which  reformation  is  desired,  cannot  cer 
tainly  be  known  beforehand.  Reform  is  not  a 
change  in  the  substance  or  in  the  primary  modifi 
cation  of  the  object,  but  a  direct  application  of  a 
remedy  to  the  grievance  complained  of.  So  far  as 
that  is  removed,  all  is  sure.  It  stops  there  ;  and 
if  it  fails,  the  substance  which  underwent  the  oper 
ation,  at  the  very  worst,  is  but  where  it  was."  This 
is  the  governing  motive  of  his  immense  labors  to 
accomplish  radical  economical  reform  in  the  ad 
ministration  of  the  government.  He  was  not  seek 
ing  economy  merely  ;  to  husband  the  resources  of 
the  country  was  no  more  than  a  means  to  an  end, 
and  that  end  was,  to  preserve  the  constitution  in  its 
purity.  He  believed  that  Parliament  was  not  truly 
representative  of  the  people  because  so  many  place 
men  found  seats  in  it,  and  because  so  many  mem 
bers  who  might  have  been  independent  were  bought 


150     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

by  the  too  abundant  favors  of  the  Court.  Cleanse 
Parliament  of  this  corruption,  and  it  would  be  re 
stored  to  something  like  its  pristine  excellence  as 
an  instrument  of  liberty. 

He  dreaded  to  see  the  franchise  extended  and 
the  House  of  Commons  radically  made  over  in  its 
constitution.  It  had  never  been  intended  to  be 
merely  the  people's  House.  It  had  been  intended 
to  hold  all  the  elements  of  the  state  that  were  not 
to  be  found  in  the  House  of  Lords  or  the  Court. 
He  conceived  it  to  be  the  essential  object  of  the 
constitution  to  establish  a  balanced  and  just  inter 
course  between  the  several  forces  of  an  ancient 
society,  and  it  was  well  that  that  balance  should  be 
preserved  even  in  the  House  of  Commons,  rather 
than  give  perilous  sweep  to  a  single  set  of  interests. 
"  These  opposed  and  conflicting  interests,"  he  said 
to  his  French  correspondent,  "  which  you  considered 
as  so  great  a  blemish  in  your  old  and  in  our  pres 
ent  Constitution,  interpose  a  salutary  check  to  all 
precipitate  resolutions.  They  render  deliberation 
a  matter,  not  of  choice,  but  of  necessity ;  they 
make  all  change  a  subject  of  compromise,  which 
naturally  begets  moderation ;  they  produce  tem 
peraments,  preventing  the  sore  evil  of  harsh,  crude, 
unqualified  reformations,  and  rendering  all  the 
headlong  exertions  of  arbitrary  power,  in  the  few 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     151 

or  in  the  many,  forever  impracticable.  Through 
that  diversity  of  members  and  interests,  general 
liberty  had  as  many  securities  as  there  are  separate 
views  in  the  several  orders  ;  whilst  by  pressing 
down  the  whole  by  the  weight  of  a  real  monarchy, 
the  separate  parts  would  have  been  prevented  from 
warping  and  starting  from  their  allotted  places." 
hesic  derive  all  w 


an  inheritance  from  our 


body  and  stock  of  experience  we_hasfi_Jiaken  care 
not  to  inoculate  any  scion  alien  to  the  nature  of  the 
original  plant."  "  This  idea  of  a  liberal  descent 
inspires  us  with  a  sense  of  habitual  native  dignity, 
which  prevents  that  upstart  insolence  almost  in 
evitably  adhering  to  and  disgracing  those  who  are 
the  first  acquirers  of  any  .distinction.  By  this 
means  our  liberty  becomes  a  noble  freedom.  It 
carries  an  imposing  and  majestic  aspect.  It  has  a 
pedigree  and  illustrating  ancestors.  It  has  its 
bearings  and  its  ensigns  armorial.  It  has  its  gal 
lery  of  portraits,  its  monumental  inscriptions,  its 
records,  evidences,  and  titles.  We  procure  rever 
ence  to  our  civil  institutions  on  the  principle  upon 
which  Nature  teaches  us  to  revere  individual  men  : 
on  account  of  their  age,  and  on  account  of  those 
from  whom  they  are  descended." 

"  When  the  useful  parts  of  an  old  establishment 


152     INTERPRETER  OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

are  kept,  and  what  is  superadded  is  to  be  fitted  to 
what  is  retained,  a  vigorous  mind,  steady,  perse 
vering  attention,  various  powers  of  comparison 
and  combination,  and  the  resources  of  an  under 
standing  fruitful  in  expedients  are  to  be  exercised ; 
they  are  to  be  exercised  in  a  continued  conflict 
with  the  combined  force  of  opposite  vices,  with  the 
obstinacy  that  rejects  all  improvement,  and  the 
levity  that  is  fatigued  and  disgusted  with  every 
thing  of  which  it  is  in  possession.  .  .  .  Political 
arrangement,  as  it  is  a  work  for  social  ends,  is  to 
be  only  wrought  by  social  means.  There  mind 
must  conspire  with  mind.  Time  is  required  to 
produce  that  union  of  minds  which  alone  can  pro 
duce  all  the  good  we  aim  at.  Our  patience  will 
achieve  more  than  our  force.  If  I  might  venture 
to  appeal  to  what  is  so  much  out  of  fashion  in 
Paris,  —  I  mean  to  experience,  —  I  should  tell  you 
that  in  my  course  I  have  known,  and,  according  to 
my  measure,  have  cooperated  with  great  men ;  and 
I  have  never  yet  seen  any  plan  which  has  not  been 
mended  by  the  observations  of  those  who  were 
much  inferior  in  understanding  to  the  person  who 
took  the  lead  in  the  business.  By  a  slow,  but  well 
sustained  progress,  the  effect  of  each  step  is 
watched  ;  the  good  or  ill  success  of  the  first  gives 
light  to  us  in  the  second  ;  and  so,  from  light  to  light, 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     153 

we  are  conducted  with  safety,  through  the  whole 
series.  .  .  .  We  are  enabled  to  unite  into  a  consis 
tent  whole  the  various  anomalies  and  contending 
principles  that  are  found  in  the  minds  and  affairs 
of  men.  From  hence  arises,  not  an  excellence  in 
simplicity,  but  one  far  superior,  an  excellence  in 
composition.  "Where  the  great  interests  of  man 
kind  are  concerned  through  a  long  succession  of 
generations,  that  succession  ought  to  be  admitted 
into  some  share  in  the  counsels  which  are  so  deeply 
to  affect  them." 

It  is  not  possible  to  escape  deep  conviction  of 
the  wisdom  of  these  reflections.  They  penetrate  to 
the  heart  of  all  practicable  methods  of  reform. 
Burke  was  doubtless  too  timid,  and  in  practical 
judgment  often  mistaken.  Measures  which  in 
reality  would  operate  only  as  salutary  and  needed 
reformations  he  feared  because  of  the  element  of 
change  that  was  in  them.  He  erred  when  he  sup 
posed  that  progress  can  in  all  its  stages  be  made 
without  changes  which  seem  to  go  even  to  the  sub 
stance.  But,  right  or  wrong,  his  philosophy  did 
not  come  to  him  of  a  sudden  and  only  at  the  end 
of  his  life,  when  he  found  France  desolated  and 
England  threatened  with  madness  for  love  of  rev 
olutionary  principles  of  change.  It  is  the  key  to 
his  thought  everywhere,  and  through  all  his  life. 


154     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY. 

It  is  the  key  (which  many  of  his  critics  have 
never  found)  to  his  position  with  regard  to  the 
revolution  in  France.  He  was  roused  to  that 
fierce  energy  of  opposition  in  which  so  many  have 
thought  that  they  detected  madness,  not  so  much 
because  of  his  deep  disgust  to  see  brutal  and 
ignorant  men  madly  despoil  an  ancient  and  honor 
able  monarchy,  as  because  he  saw  the  spirit  of 
these  men  cross  the  Channel  and  find  lodgment 
in  England,  even  among  statesmen  like  Fox,  who 
had  been  his  own  close  friends  and  companions  in 
thought  and  policy  ;  not  so  much  because  he  loved 
France  as  because  he  feared  for  England.  For 
England  he  had  Shakespeare's  love  : 

"  That  fortress  built  by  nature  for  herself 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war  ; 
That  happy  breed  of  men,  that  little  world, 
That  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea, 
Which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a  wall, 
Or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house, 
Against  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands  ; 
That  blessed  plot,  that  earth,  that  realm,  that  England." 

'T  was  to  keep  out  infection  and  to  preserve  such 

nf  manly  tradition  as  had  mad  ft  that 


little  world  "  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands  "  that 
Burke  sounded  so  effectually  that  extraordinary 
alarm  against  the  revolutionary  spirit  that  was 
racking  France  from  throne  to  cottage.  Let  us 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     155 

admit,  if  you  will,  that  with  reference  to  France 
herself  he  was  mistaken.     Let  us  say  that  when  he 
admired  the  institutions  which  she  was  then  sweep 
ing  away  he  was  yielding  to  sentiment,  and  imagin 
ing  France  as  perfect  as  the  beauty  of  the  sweet 
queen  he  had  seen  in  her  radiant  youth.     Let  us 
concede  that  he  did  not  understand  the  condition 
of  France,  and  therefore  did  not  see  how  inevitable 
that  terrible  revolution  was :   that  in  this  case,  too, 
the  wages  of  sin  was  death.     He  was  not  defend 
ing  France,  if  you  look  to   the  bottom  of  it ;  he 
was    defending   England :  —  and    the    things    he 
hated  are  truly  hateful.     He  hated  the  French  rev-    \^ 
olutionary    philosophy^and    deemed    it   nnfife—frrr-  ^1 
free  men.     And^that  philosophy  is   in  fact  radi-  — "^ 
cally  evil  and  corrupting.     No  state  can  ever  be      / 
Conducted   on    its  principles.     For^Jt  holds  that     / 
government  is  a  matter  of  contract  and   deliberate   / 
arrangement,  whereas  in  fact  it  is  an  institute  of    \ 
habit,  bound  together  by  innumerable  threads  of      W 
association,  scarcely  one  of  which  has  been  deliber-    "/ 
ately  placed.    Itjiqlcls  that  the  object  of  government/^ 
is  liberty,  whereas  the  true  object  of  governmentV 
is  justice:  not   the-adgantag-e  of_nnft  ^flpg,   «vren 
though  that  class  p-nnstif^tfi  thft  minority,  but  ricfht 

equity  in  the  adjii&tmejnt  of   the    interests  of  all 
classes.  _  Tt  assumes  that  government  can  be  made 


156     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

jes  it  without  the  slightest 


historical^foundation.        For    governments    have 

and  permanently  changed 


7  excej3t  by  slow  modification  operating  from  genera 
tion  to  generation.  It  contradicted  every  principle 
tKaFTiacr  been  so  laboriously  brought  to  light  in 
the  slow  stages  of  the  growth  of  liberty  in  the  only 
land  in  which  liberty  had  then  grown  to  great  pro 
portions.  The  history  of  England  is  a  continuous 
thesis  against  revolution  ;  and  Burke  would  have 
been  no  true  Englishman,  had  he  not  roused  him 
self,  even  fanatically,  if  there  were  need,  to  keep 
such  puerile  doctrine  out. 

If  you  think  his  fierceness  was  madness,  look 
how  he  conducted  the  trial  against  Warren  Has 
tings  during  those  same  years  :  with  what  patience, 
with  what  steadiness  in  business,  with  what  temper, 
with  what  sane  and  balanced  attention  to  detail, 
with  what  statesmanlike  purpose  !  Note,  likewise, 
that  his  thesis  is  the  same  in  the  one  undertaking 
as  in  the.  other.  He  was  applying  the  same  princi 
ples  to  the  case  of  France  and  to  the  case  of  India 
that  he  had  applied  to  the  case  of  the  colonies. 
He  meant  to  save  the  empire,  not  by  changing  its 
constitution,  as  was  the  method  in  France,  and  so 
shaking  every  foundation  in  order  to  dislodge  an 
abuse,  but  by  administering  it  uprightly  and  in  a 


INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY.     157 

liberal  spirit.  He  was  persuaded  "that  govern 
ment  was  a  practical  thing,  made  for  the  happiness 
of  mankind,  and  not  to  furnish  out  a  spectacle  of 
uniformity  to  gratify  the  schemes  of  visionary  poli 
ticians.  Our  business,"  he  said,  "  was  to  rule,  not 
to  wrangle ;  and  it  would  be  a  poor  compensation 
that  we  had  triumphed  in  a  dispute,  whilst  we  had 
lost  an  empire."  The  monarchy  must  be  saved 
and  the  constitution  vindicated  by  keeping  the 
empire  pure  in  all  parts,  even  in  the  remotest 
provinces.  Hastings  must  be  crushed  in  order 
that  the  world  might  know  that  no  English  gov 
ernor  could  afford  to  be  unjust.  Good  govern 
ment,  like  all  virtue,  he  deemed  to  be  a  practical 
habit  of  conduct,  and  not  a  matter  of  constitutional 
structure.  It  is  a  great  ideal,  a  thoroughly  English 
ideal ;  and  it  constitutes  the  leading  thought  of  all 
Burke's  career. 

In  short,  as  I  began  by  saying,  this  man,  an 
Irishman,  speaks  the  best  English  thought  upon  the 
essential  questions  of  politics.  He  is  thoroughly, 
characteristically,  and  to  the  bottom  English  in  all 
his  thinking.  He  is  more  liberal  than  Englishmen 
in  his  treatment  of  Irish  questions,  of  course  ;  for 
he  understands  them,  as  no  Englishman  of  his 
generation  did.  But  for  all  that  he  remains  the 
chief  spokesman  for  England  in  the  utterance  of 


158     INTERPRETER   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

the  fundamental  ideals  which  have  governed  the 
action  of  Englishmen  in  politics.  "  All  the  ancient, 
honest,  juridical  principles  and  institutions  of  Eng 
land,"  such  was  his  idea,  "are  so  many  clogs  to 
check  and  retard  the  headlong  course  of  violence 
and  oppression.  They  were  invented  for  this  one 
good  purpose,  that  what  was  not  just  should  not  be 
convenient."  This  is  fundamental  English  doctrine. 
English  liberty  has  consisted  in  making  it  unpleas 
ant  for  those  who  were  unjust,  and  thus  getting 
them  in  the  habit  of  being  just  for  the  sake  of  a 
modus  vivendi.  Burke  is  the  apostle  of  the  great 
English  gospel  of  Expediency. 

The    politics    of    English-speaking    peoples   has 
never  been  speculative  ;   it  Jias  always   bppn  pro- 
practical  and  utilitarian.     Speculative  pol- 


itics  treats  men  and  situations  as  they  are  supposed 
to  be  ;  practical  politics  treats  them  (upon  no  gen- 
.  eral  plan,  but  in  detail)  as  they  are  found  to  be  at 
tha-moment  of  actual  contact.  With  reference  to 
America  Burke  argues  :  No  matter  what  your  legal 
right  in  the  case,  it  is  not  expedient  to  treat 
America  as  you  propose  :  a  numerous  and  spirited 
people  like  the  colonists  will  not  submit  ;  and  your 
experiment  will  cost  you  your  colonies.  In  the 
case  of  administrative  reform,  again,  it  is  .the 
higher  sort  of  expediency  he  urges  :  If  you  wish 


INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBEETY.     159 

to  keep  your  government  from  revolution,  keep  it 
from  corruption,  and  by  making  it  pure  render  it 
permanent.  To  the  French  he  says,  It  is  not  expe 
dient  to  destroy  thus  recklessly  these  ancient  parts 
of  your  constitution.  How  will  you  replace  them  ? 
How  will  you  conduct  affairs  at  all  after  you  shall 
have  deprived  yourselves  of  all  balance  and  of  all 
old  counsel?  It  is  both  better  and  easier  to  reform 
than  to  tear  down  and  reconstruct. 

This  is  unquestionably  the  message  of  English 
men  to  the  world,  and  Burke  utters  it  with  incom 
parable  eloquence.  A  man  of  sensitive  imagination 
and  elevated  moral  sense,  of  a  wide  knowledge  and 
capacity  for  affairs,  he  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
English  nation  speaking  its  moral  judgments  upon 
affairs,  its  character  in  political  action,  its  purposes 
of  freedom,  equity,  wide  and  equal  progress.  It  is 
the  immortal  charm  of  his  speech  and  manner  that 
gives  permanence  to  his  works.  Though  his  life 
was  devoted  to  affairs  with  a  constant  and  unalter 
able  passion,  the  radical  features  of  Burke's  mind 
were  literary.  He  was  a  man  of  books,  without 
being  under  the  dominance  of  what  others  had 
written.  He  got  knowledge  out  of  books  and  the 
abundance  of  matter  his  mind  craved  to  work  its 
constructive  and  imaginative  effects  upon.  It  is 
singular  how  devoid  of  all  direct  references  to 


160     INTEEPEETEE   OF  ENGLISH  LIBERTY. 

books  his  writings  are.  The  materials  of  his 
thought  never  reappear  in  the  same  form  in  which 
he  obtained  them.  They  have  been  smelted  and 
recoined.  They  have  come  under  the  drill  and 
inspiration  of  a  great  constructive  mind,  have 
caught  life  and  taken  structure  from  it.  Burke  is 
not  literary  because  he  takes  from  books,  but  be 
cause  he  makes  books,  transmuting  what  he  writes 
upon  into  literature.  It  is  this  inevitable  literary 
quality,  this  sure  mastery  of  style,  that  mark  the 
man,  as  much  as  his  thought  itself.  He  is  a  master 
in  the  use  of  the  great  style.  Every  sentence,  too, 
is  steeped  in  the  colors  of  an  extraordinary  imag 
ination.  The  movement  takes  your  breath  and 
quickens  your  pulses.  The  glow  and  power  of  the 
matter  rejuvenate  your  faculties. 

And  yet  the  thought,  too,  is  quite  as  imperish 
able  as  its  incomparable  vehicle. 

"The  deepest,  plainest,  highest,  clearest  pen; 
The  voice  most  echoed  by  consenting  men  ; 
The  soul  which  answered  best  to  all  well  said 
By  others,  and  which  most  requital  made ; 
Tuned  to  the  highest  key  of  ancient  Rome, 
Returning  all  her  music  with  his  own  ; 
In  whom,  with  nature,  study  claimed  a  part, 
And  yet  who  to  himself  owed  all  his  art." 


VI. 

THE   TRUTH   OF   THE   MATTER. 

"  GIVE  us  the  facts,  and  nothing  but  the  facts," 
is  the  sharp  injunction  of  our  age  to  its  historians. 
Upon  the  face  of  it,  an  eminently  reasonable  re 
quirement.  To  tell  the  truth  simply,  openly,  with 
out  reservation,  is  the  unimpeachable  first  principle 
of  all  right  dealing ;  and  historians  have  no  license 
to  be  quit  of  it.  Unquestionably  they  must  tell  us 
the  truth,  or  else  get  themselves  enrolled  among  a 
very  undesirable  class  of  persons,  not  often  frankly 
named  in  polite  society.  But  the  thing  is  by  no 
means  so  easy  as  it  looks.  The  truth  of  history  is 
a  very  complex  and  very  occult  matter.  It  consists 
of  things  which  are  invisible  as  well  as  of  things 
which  are  visible.  It  is  full  of  secret  motives,  and 
of  a  chance  interplay  of  trivial  and  yet  determining 
circumstances  ;  it  is  shot  through  with  transient 
passions,  and  broken  athwart  here  and  there  by 
what  seem  cruel  accidents ;  it  cannot  all  be  reduced 

to  Statistic^  nr  rmwapapftr  if.Pmg  nr  nfflm'fll    TAonrrJArl 

statements.     And  so  it  turns  out,  when  the  actual 
test  of  experiment  is  made,  that  the  historian  must 


162  THE  TRUTH   OF  THE  MATTER. 

have  something  more  than  a  good  conscience,  must 
be  something  more  than  a  good  man.  He  imjst 
have  an  cjiijLQ_J]£P  ^nfL  truth  r  find  nothing  Vint  a 
very  catholic  imagination  will  serve  to  illuminate 
his  matter  for  him:  nothing  less  than  keen  and 
steady  insight  will  make  even  illumination  yield 
him  the  truth  of  what  he  looks  upon.  Even  when 
he  has  seen  the  truth,  only  half  his  work  is  done, 
and  that  not  the  more  difficult  half.  He  must 
then  make  others  see  it  just  as  he  does :  only  when 
he  has  done  that  has  he  told  the  truth.  What  an 
art  of  penetrative  phrase  and  just  selection  must 
he  have  to  take  others  into  the  light  in  which  he 
stands  !  Their  dullness,  their  ignorance^  their  pre 
possessions,  are  to  be  overcome  and  driven  in.  like 
a  routed  troop,jipon  the  truth.  The  thing  is  infi 
nitely  difficult.  The  skill  and  strategy  of  it  cannot 
be  taught.  And  so  historians  take  another  way, 
which  is  easier :  they  tell  part  of  the  truth,  —  the 
part  most  to  their  taste,  or  most  suitable  to  their 
talents,  —  and  obtain  readers  to  their  liking  among 
those  of  similar  tastes  and  talents  to  their  own. 

We  have  our  individual  preferences  in  history, 
as  in  every  other  sort  of  literature.  And  there  are 
histories  to  every  taste :  histories  full  of  the  piquant 
details  of  personal  biography,  histories  that  blaze 
with  the  splendors  of  courts  and  resound  with 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.     163 

drum  and  trumpet,  and  histories  that  run  upon  the 
humbler  but  greater  levels  of  the  life  of  the  people ; 
colorless  histories,  so  passionless  and  so  lacking  in 
distinctive  mark  or  motive  that  they  might  have 
been  set  up  out  of  a  dictionary  without  the  inter 
vention  of  an  author,  and  partisan  histories,  so 
warped  and  violent  in  every  judgment  that  no 
reader  not  of  the  historian's  own  party  can  stomach 
them ;  histories  of  economic  development,  and  his 
tories  that  speak  only  of  politics ;  those  that  tell 
nothing  but  what  it  is  pleasant  and  interesting  to 
know,  and  those  that  tell  nothing  at  all  that  one 
cares  to  remember.  One  must  be  of  a  new  and 
unheard-of  taste  not  to  be  suited  among  them  all. 

The  trouble  is,  after  all,  that  men  do  not  invari 
ably  find  the  truth  to  their  taste,  and  will  often 
deny  it  when  they  hear  it ;  and  the  historian  has  to 
do  much  more  than  keep  his  own  eyes  clear :  he 
has  also  to  catch  and  hold  the  eye  of  his  reader. 
'T  is  a  nice  art,  as  much  intellectual  as  moral. 
How  shall  he  take  the  palate  of  his  reader  at  un 
awares,  and  get  the  unpalatable  facts  down  his 
throat  along  with  the  palatable  ?  Is  there  no  way 
in  which  all  the  truth  may  be  made  to  hold  together 
in  a  narrative  so  strongly  knit  and  so  harmoniously 
colored  that  no  reader  will  have  either  the  wish  or 
the  skill  to  tear  its  patterns  asunder,  and  men  will 


164  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

take  it  all,  unmarred  and  as  it  stands,  rather  than 
miss  the  zest  of  it  ? 

It  is  evident  the  thing  cannot  be  done  by  the 
"  dispassionate '  annalist.^  The  old  chroniclers, 
whom" we  relish,  were  not  dispassionate.  We  love 
some  of  them  for  their  sweet  quaintness,  some  for 
their  childlike  credulity,  some  for  their  delicious 
inconsequeiitiality.  But  our  modern  chroniclers 
are  not  so.  They  are,  above  all  things  else,  know 
ing,  thoroughly  informed,  subtly  sophisticated. 
They  would  not  for  the  world  contribute  any  spice 
of  their  own  to  the  narrative ;  and  they  are  much 
too  watchful,  circumspect,  and  dutiful  in  their  care 
bo  keep  their  method  pure  and  untouched  by  any 
thought  of  theirs  to  let  us  catch  so  much  as  a 
glimpse  of  the  chronicler  underneath  the  chronicle. 
Their  purpose  is  to  give  simply  the  facts,  eschewing 
art,  and  substituting  a  sort  of  monumental  index 
and  table  of  the  world's  events. 

The  trouble  is  that  men  refuse  to  be  made  any 
wiser  by  such  means.  Though  they  will  readily 
enough  let  their  eyes  linger  upon  a  monument  of 
art,  they  will  heedlessly  pass  by  a  mere  monument 
of  industry.  It  suggests  nothing  to  them.  The 
materials  may  be  suitable  enough,  1m  t,  flip  handling- 
dead  and  commonplace.  An 


interesting  circumstance  thus  comes  to  light.     It 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  165 


is  nothing  less  than  this,  tljat^  the  facts  do  not  of 
themselves  constitute  the  truth.     The  truth  is  ab 


stract,  not  concrete.  It  is  the  just  idea,  the  right 
revelation  of  what  things  mean.  It  is  evoked  only 
by  such  arrangements  and  orderings  of  facts  as 
suggest  interpretations.  The  chronological  arrange 
ment  of  events,  for  example,  may  or  may  not  be 
the  arrangement  which  most  surely  brings  the 
truth  of  the  narrative  to  light  ;  and  the  best  ar 
rangement  is  always  that  which  displays,  not  the 
facts  themselves,  but  the  subtle  and  else  invisible 
forces  that  lurk  in  the  events  and  in  the  minds  of 
men,  —  forces  for  which  events  serve  only  as  lasting  • 
and  dramatic  words  of  utterance.  Take  an  instance. 
How  are  you  to  enable  men  to  know  the  truth 
with  regard  to  a  period  of  revolution  ?  Will  you 
give  them  simply  a  calm  statement  of  recorded 
events,  simply  a  quiet,  unaccentuated  narrative  of 
what  actually  happened,  written  in  a  monotone, 
and  verified  by  quotations  from  authentic  docu 
ments  of  the  time?  You  may  save  yourself  the 
trouble.  As  well  make  a  pencil  sketch  in  outline 
of  a  raging  conflagration  ;  write  upon  one  portion 
of  it  "flame,"  upon  another  "smoke;"  here  "town 
hall,  where  the  fire  started,"  and  there  "  spot  where 
fireman  was  killed."  It  is  a  chart,  not  a  picture. 
Even  if  you  made  a  veritable  picture  of  it,  you 


166  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

could  give  only  part  of  the  truth  so  long  as  you 
confined  yourself  to  black  and  white.  Where 
would  be  all  the  wild  and  terrible  colors  of  the 
scene  :  the  red  and  tawny  flame ;  the  masses  of 
smoke,  carrying  the  dull  glare  of  the  fire  to  the 
very  skies,  like  a  great  signal  banner  thrown  to  the 
winds  ;  the  hot  and  frightened  faces  of  the  crowd ; 

faint  light  of  a  lamp  here  and  there  gleaming 
white  from  some  hastily  opened  casement  ?  With- 
oH^thejcolpjt^jro^  No  inven 

tory  of  items  will  even  represent  the  truth  :  the 
*  J.J-  fuller  and  more  minute  you  make  your  inventory, 
the  more  will  the  truth  be  obscured.  The  little 
details  will  take  up  as  much  space  in  the  statement 
as  the  great  totals  into  which  they  are  summed  up ; 
and,  the  proportions  being  false,  the  whole  is  false. 
Truth,  fortunately,  takes  its  own  revenge.  No  one 
is  deceived.  The  reader  of  the  chronicle  lays  it 
aside.  It  lacks  verisimilitude.  He  cannot  realize 
how  any  of  the  things  spoken  of  can  have  hap 
pened.  He  goes  elsewhere  to  find,  if  he  may,  a 
real  picture  of  the  time,  and  perhaps  finds  one  that 
is  wholly  fictitious.  No  wonder  the  grave  and 
monk-like  chronicler  sighs.  He  of  course  wrote  to 
be  read,  and  not  merely  for  the  manual  exercise  of 
it ;  and  when  he  sees  readers  turn  away  his  heart 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  167 

misgives  him  for  his  fellow-men.  Is  it  as  it  always 
was,  that  they  do  not  wish  to  know  the  truth? 
Alas !  good  eremite,  men  do  not  seek  the  truth  as 
they  should  ;  but  do  you  know  what  the  truth  is  ? 
It  is  a  thing  ideal,  displayed  by  the  just  proportion 
of  events,  revealed  in  form  and  color,  dumb  till 
facts  be  set  in  syllables,  articulated  into  words,  put 
together  into  sentences,  swung  with  proper  tone 
and  cadence.  It  is  not  revolutions  only  that  have 
color.  Nothing  in  human  life  is  without  it.  In  a 
monochrome  you  can  depict  nothing  but  a  single 
incident ;  in  a  monotone  you  cannot  often  carry 
truth  beyond  a  single  sentence.  Only  by  art  in  all 
its  variety  can  you  depict  as  it  is  the  various  face 
of  life. 

Yes;  but  what  sort  of  art?  There  is  here. a 
wide  field  of  choice.  Shall  we  go  back  to  the  art 
of  which  Macaulay  was  so  great  a  master  ?  We 
could  do  worse.  It  must  be  a  great  art  that  can 
make  men  lay  aside  the  novel  and  take  up  the  his 
tory,  to  find  there,  in  very  fact,  the  movement  and 
drama  of  life.  What  Macaulay  does  well  he  does 
incomparably.  Who  else  can  mass  the  details  as 
he  does,  and  yet  not  mar  or  obscure,  but  only 
heighten,  the  effect  of  the  picture  as  a  whole? 
Who  else  can  bring  so  amazing  a  profusion  of 
knowledge  within  the  strait  limits  of  a  simple  plan, 


168  THE  TEUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

nowhere  encumbered,  everywhere  free  and  obvious 
in  its  movement  ?  How  sure  the  strokes,  and  how 
bold  and  vivid  the  result !  Yet  when  we  have  laid 
the  book  aside,  when  the  charm  and  the  excitement 
of  the  telling  narrative  have  worn  off,  when  we 
have  lost  step  with  the  swinging  gait  at  which  the 
style  goes,  when  the  details  have  faded  from  our 
recollection,  and  we  sit  removed  and  thoughtful, 
with  only  the  greater  outlines  of  the  story  sharp 
upon  our  minds,  a  deep  misgiving  and  dissatisfac 
tion  take  possession  of  us.  We  are  no  longer 
young,  and  we  are  chagrined  that  we  should  have 
been  so  pleased  and  taken  with  the  glitter  and 
color  and  mere  life  of  the  picture.  Let  boys  be 
cajoled  by  rhetoric,  we  cry ;  men  must  look  deeper. 
What  of  the  judgment  of  this  facile  and  eloquent 
man  ?  Can  we  agree  with  him,  when  he  is  not 
talking  and  the  charm  is  gone  ?  What  shall  we 
say  of  his  assessment  of  men  and  measures?  Is 
he  just?  Is  he  himself  in  possession  of  the  whole 
truth  ?  Does  he  open  the  matter  to  us  as  it  was  ? 
Does  he  not,  rather,  rule  us  like  an  advocate,  and 
make  himself  master  of  our  judgments  ? 

Then  it  is  that  we  become  aware  that  there  were 
two  Macaulays :  Macaulay  the  artist,  with  an  ex 
quisite  gift  for  telling  a  story,  filling  his  pages  with 
little  vignettes  it  is  impossible  to  forget,  fixing 


THE  TEUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  169 

these  with  an  inimitable  art  upon  the  surface  of 
a  narrative  that  did  not  need  the  ornament  they 
gave  it,  so  strong  and  large  and  adequate  was  it ; 
and  Macaulay  the  Whig,  subtly  turning  narrative 
into  argument,  and  making  history  the  vindication 
of  a  party.  The  mighty  narrative  is  a  great  engine 
of  proof.  It  is  not  told  for  its  own  sake.  It  is 
evidence  summed  up  in  order  to  justify  a  judg 
ment.  We  detect  the  tone  of  the  advocate,  and 
though  if  we  are  just  we  must  deem  him  honest, 
we  cannot  deem  him  safe.  The  great  story-teller 
is  discredited;  and,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  we 
reject  the  guide  who  takes  it  upon  himself  to  de 
termine  for  us  what  we  shall  see.  That,  we  feel 
sure,  cannot  be  true  which  makes  of  so  complex  a 
history  so  simple  a  thesis  for  the  judgment.  There 
is  art  here ;  but  it  is  the  art  of  special  pleading, 
misleading  even  to  the  pleader. 

If  not  Macaulay,  what  master  shall  we  follow  ? 
Shall  our  historian  not  have  his  convictions,  and 
enforce  them?  Shall  he  not  be  our  guide,  and 
speak,  if  he  can,  to  our  spirits  as  well  as  to  our 
understandings  ?  Readers  are  a  poor  jury.  They 
need  enlightenment  as  well  as  information  ;  the 
matter  must  be  interpreted  to  them  as  well  as  re 
lated.  There  are  moral  facts  as  well  as  material, 
and  the  one  sort  must  be  as  plainly  told  as  the 


170  THE   TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTEE. 

other.  Of  what  service  is  it  that  the  historian 
should  have  insight  if  we  are  not  to  know  how  the 
matter  stands  in  his  view?  If  he  refrain  from 
judgment,  he  may  deceive  us  as  much  as  he 
would  were  his  judgment  wrong ;  for  we  must 
have  enlightenment,  —  that  is  his  function.  We 
would  not  set  him  up  merely  to  tell  us  tales,  but 
also  to  display  to  us  characters,  to  open  to  us  the 
moral  and  intent  of  the  matter.  Were  the  men 
sincere  ?  Was  the  policy  righteous  ?  We  have  but 
just  now  seen  that  the  "  facts  "  lie  deeper  than  the 
mere  visible  things  that  took  place,  that  they  in 
volve  the  moral  and  motive  of  the  play.  Shall 
not  these,  too,  be  brought  to  light  ? 

Unquestionably  every  sentence  of  true  history 
must  hold  a  judgment  in  solution.  All  cannot  be 
told.  If  it  were  possible  to  tell  all,  it  would  take 
as  long  to  write  history  as  to  enact  it,  and  we  should 
have  to  postpone  the  reading  of  it  to  the  leisure 
of  the  next  world.  A  few  facts  must  be  selected 
for  the  narrative,  the  great  majority  left  unnoted. 
But  the  selection  —  for  what  purpose  it  is  to  be 
made?  For  the  purpose  of  conveying  an  impression 
of  the  truth.  Where  shall  you  find  a  more  radical 
process  of  judgment?  The  "essential"  facts  taken, 
the  "  unessential  "  left  out !  Why,  you  may  make 
the  picture  what  you  will,  and  in  any  case  it  must 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  171 

be  the  express  image  of  the  historian's  fundamental 
judgments.  It  is  his  purpose,  or  should  be,  to  give 
a  true  impression  of  his  theme  as  a  whole,  —  to 
show  it,  not  lying  upon  his  page  in  an  open  and 
dispersed  analysis,  but  set  close  in  intimate  syn 
thesis,  every  line,  every  stroke,  every  bulk  even, 
omitted  which  does  not  enter  of  very  necessity  into 
a  single  and  unified  image  of  the  truth. 

It  is  in  this  that  the  writing  of  history  differs, 
and  differs  very  radically,  from  the  statement  of 
the  results  of  original  research.  The  writing  of 
history  must  be  based  upon  original  research  and 
authentic  record,  but  it  can  no  more  be  directly 
constructed  by  the  piecing  together  of  bits  of 
original  research  than  by  the  mere  reprinting  to 
gether  of  state  documents.  Individual  research 
furnishes  us,  as  it  were,  with  the  private  documents 
and  intimate  records  without  which  the  public 
archives  are  incomplete  and  unintelligible.  But 
by  themselves  these  are  wholly  out  of  perspective. 
It  is  the  consolation  of  those  who  produce  them  to 
make  them  so.  They  would  lose  heart  were  they 
forbidden  to  regard  all  facts  as  of  equal  importance. 
It  is  facts  they  are  after,  and  only  facts,  —  facts 
for  their  own  sake,  and  without  regard  to  their 
several  importance.  These  are  their  ore,  —  very 
precious  ore,  —  which  they  are  concerned  to  get 


172  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

out,  not  to  refine.  They  have  no  direct  concern 
with  what  may  afterwards  be  done  at  the  mint  or 
in  the  goldsmith's  shop.  They  will  even  boast  that 
they  care  not  for  the  beauty  of  the  ore,  and  are 
indifferent  how,  or  in  what  shape,  it  may  become 
an  article  of  commerce.  Much  of  it  is  thrown 
away  in  the  nice  processes  of  manufacture,  and  you 
shall  not  distinguish  the  product  of  the  several 
mines  in  the  coin,  or  the  cup,  or  the  salver. 

The  historian  must,  indeed,  himself  be  an  inves 
tigator.  He  must  know  good  ore  from  bad  ;  must 
distinguish  fineness,  quality,  genuineness  ;  must  stop 
to  get  out  of  the  records  for  himself  what  he  lacks 
for  the  perfection  of  his  work.  But  for  all  that, 
he  must  know  and  stand  ready  to  do  every  part  of 
his  task  like  a  master  workman,  recognizing  and 
testing  every  bit  of  stuff  he  uses.  Standing  sure, 
a  man  of  science  as  well  as  an  artist,  he  must  take 
and  use  all  of  his  equipment  for  the  sake  of  his 
art,  —  not  to  display  hisumatoiafe^butjo.subordi-. 
nate  and  transform  them  in  his  effort  to  make,  by 
every^touch  and  cunning  of  han  cTand  toojIJbh&_per- 


fect^  image  of  what  .he-^ees^  jfcke  ygry.jtxuth~-of~4iis 

^VpYJsi^ri   "f    the,  w™^        The  true  historian 
t:  "-  „ 

works_  always  for  the-^whal£_jmpre^sionj  the_jtruth 
with  unmarred  propertiens^nexaggerated  parts, 
undistorted  visage._  He  has  no  favorite  parts  of 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  173 

the  story  which  he  boasts  are  bits  of  his  own,  but 
loves  only  the  whole  of  it,  the  full  and  unspoiled 
image~~df  the  day  of  which  he  writes,  the  crowded 
and  yet  consistent  details  which  carry,  without  ob 
trusion  of  themselves,  the  large  features  of  the 
time.  Any  exaggeration  of  the  parts  makes  all 
the  picture  false,  and  the  work  is  to  do  over. 
"  Test  every  bit  of  material,"  runs  the  artist's  rule, 
"  and  then  forget  the  material ; "  forget  its  origin 
and  the  dross  from  which  it  has  been  freed,  and 
think  only  and  always  of  the  great  thing  you 
would  make  of  it,  the  pattern  and  form  in  which 
you  would  lose  and  merge  it.  That  is  its  only 
high  use. 

'T  is  a  pity  to  see  how  even  the  greatest  minds 
will  often  lack  the  broad  and  catholic  vision  with 
which  the  just  historian  must  look  upon  men  and 
affairs.  There  is  Carlyle,  with  his  shrewd  and  see 
ing  eye,  his  unmatched  capacity  to  assess  strong 
men  and  set  the  scenery  for  tragedy  or  intrigue,  his 
breathless  ardor  for  great  events,  his  amazing  flashes 
of  insight,  and  his  unlooked-for  steady  light  of  oc 
casional  narrative.  The  whole  matter  of  what  he 
writes  is  too  dramatic.  Surely  history  was  not  all 
enacted  so  hotly,  or  with  so  passionate  a  rush  of 
men  upon  the  stage.  Its  quiet  scenes  must  have 
been  longer,  not  mere  pauses  and  interludes  while 


174  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

the  tragic  parts  were  being  made  up.     There  is  not 
often  ordinary  sunlight  upon  the  page.     The  lights 
burn  now  wan,  now  lurid.     Men  are  seen  disquieted 
and  turbulent,  and  may  be  heard  in  husky  cries  or 
rude,  untimely  jests.     We  do   not  recognize  our 
own  world,  but  seem  to  see  another  such  as  ours 
might  become  if  peopled  by  like  uneasy  Titans. 
Incomparable  to  tell  of  days  of  storm  and  revolu 
tion,  speaking  like  an  oracle  and  familiar  of  des 
tiny  and  fate,   searching  the  hearts  of  statesmen 
and  conquerors  with  an  easy  insight  in  every  day  of 
action,  this  peasant  seer  cannot  give  us  the  note  of 
piping  times  of  peace,  or  catch  the  tone  of    slow 
industry  ;  watches  ships  come  and  go  at  the  docks, 
hears  freight- vans  thunder  along  the  iron  highways 
of  the  modern  world,  and  loaded  trucks  lumber 
heavily  through  the  crowded  city  streets,  with  a 
hot  disdain  of  commerce,  prices  current,  the  hag 
gling  of  the    market,  the   smug   ease  of   material 
comfort  bred  in  a  trading  age.     There  is  here  no 
broad  and   catholic  vision,  no  wise   tolerance,  no 
various  power  to  know,  to  sympathize,  to  interpret. 
The  great^seeingjmagination  of  the  manjacka  that 
pure -radiance  Jii-whifih  thip^are  seen  steadily  and 
seen  whole. 

It  is  not  easy,  to  say  truth,  to  find  actual  exam 
ples  when  you  are  constructing  the  ideal  historian, 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  175 

the  man  with  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine 
to  see  affairs  justly  and  tell  of  them  completely. 
If  you  are  not  satisfied  with  this  passionate  and 
intolerant  seer  of  Chelsea,  whom  will  you  choose  ? 
Shall  it  be  Gibbon,  whom  all  praise,  but  so  few 
read  ?  He,  at  any  rate,  is  passionless,  it  would 
appear.  But  who  could  write  epochal  history 
with  passion  ?  All  hot  humors  of  the  mind  must, 
assuredly,  cool  when  spread  at  large  upon  so  vast 
a  surface.  One  must  feel  like  a  sort  of  minor 
providence  in  traversing  that  great  tract  of  world 
history,  and  catch  in  spite  of  one's  self  the  gait  and 
manner  of  a  god.  This  stately  procession  of  gener 
ations  moves  on  remote  from  the  ordinary  levels  of 
our  human  sympathy.  'T  is  a  wide  view  of  nations 
and  peoples  and  dynasties,  and  a  world  shaken  by 
the  travail  of  new  births.  There  is  here  no  scale 
by  which  to  measure  the  historian  of  the  sort  we 
must  look  to  see  handle  the  ordinary  matter  of 
national  history.  The  "  Decline  and  Fall  "  stands 
impersonal,  like  a  monument.  We  shall  reverence 
it,  but  we  shall  not  imitate  it. 

If  we  look  away  from  Gibbon,  exclude  Carlyle, 
and  question  Macaulay  ;  if  we  put  the  investigators 
on  one  side  as  not  yet  historians,  and  the  deliber 
ately  picturesque  and  entertaining  raconteurs  as 
not  yet  investigators,  we  naturally  turn,  I  suppose, 


176  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

to  such  a  man  as  John  Kichard  Green,  at  once  the 
patient  scholar,  —  who  shall  adequately  say  how 
nobly  patient  ?  —  and  the  rare  artist,  working  so 
like  a  master  in  the  difficult  stuffs  of  a  long  na 
tional  history.  The  very  life  of  the  man  is  as  beau 
tiful  as  the  moving  sentences  he  wrote  with  so  sub 
tle  a  music  in  the  cadence.  We  know  whence  the 
fine  moral  elevation  of  tone  came  that  sounds 
through  all  the  text  of  his  great  narrative.  True, 
not  everybody  is  satisfied  with  our  doctor  angelicus. 
Some  doubt  he  is  too  ornate.  Others  are  troubled 
that  he  should  sometimes  be  inaccurate.  Some  are 
willing  to  use  his  history  as  a  manual ;  while  others 
cannot  deem  him  satisfactory  for  didactic  uses, 
hesitate  how  they  shall  characterize  him,  and  quit 
the  matter  vaguely  with  saying  that  what  he  wrote 
is  "at  any  rate  literature."  Can  there  be  some 
thing  lacking  in  Green,  too,  notwithstanding  he 
was  impartial,  and  looked  with  purged  and  open 
eyes  upon  the  whole  unbroken  life  of  his  people,  — 
notwithstanding  he  saw  the  truth  and  had  the  art 
and  mastery  to  make  others  see  it  as  he  did,  in  all 
its  breadth  and  multiplicity  ? 

Perhaps  even  this  great  master  -of  narrative 
lacks  variety  —  as  who  does  not?  His  method, 
whatever  the  topic,  is  ever  the  same.  His  sen 
tences,  his  paragraphs,  his  chapters  are  pitched 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  177 

one  and  all  in  the  same  key.  It  is  a  very  fine  and 
moving  key.  Many  an  elevated  strain  and  rich 
harmony  commend  it  alike  to  the  ear  and  to  the 
imagination.  It  is  employed  with  an  easy  mastery, 
and  is  made  to  serve  to  admiration  a  wide  range 
of  themes.  But  it  is  always  the  same  key,  and 
some  themes  it  will  not  serve.  An  infinite  variety 
plays  through  all  history.  Every  scene  has  its 
own  air  and  singularity.  Incidents  cannot  all  be 
rightly  set  in  the  narrative  if  all  be  set  alike.  As 
the  scene  shifts,  the  tone  of  the  narrative  must 
change  :  the  narrator's  choice  of  incident  and  his 
choice  of  words ;  the  speed  and  method  of  his  sen 
tence  ;  his  own  thought,  even,  and  point  of  view. 
Surely  his  battle  pages  must  resound  with  the 
tramp  of  armies  and  the  fearful  din  and  rush  of 
war.  In  peace  he  must  catch  by  turns  the  hum  of 
industry,  the  bustle  of  the  street,  the  calm  of  the 
country-side,  the  tone  of  parliamentary  debate,  the 
fancy,  the  ardor,  the  argument  of  poets  and  seers 
and  quiet  students.  Snatches  of  song  run  along 
with  sober  purpose  and  strenuous  endeavor  through 
every  nation's  story.  Coarse  men  and  refined, 
mobs  and  ordered  assemblies,  science  and  mad  im 
pulse,  storm  and  calm,  are  all  alike  ingredients  of 
the  various  life.  It  is  not  all  epic.  There  is  rough 
comedy  and  brutal  violence.  The  drama  can  scarce 


178  THE   TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

be  given  any  strict,  unbroken  harmony  of  incident, 
any  close  logical  sequence  of  act  or  nice  unity  of 
scene.  To  pitch  it  all  in  one  key,  therefore,  is  to 
mistake  the  significance  of  the  infinite  play  of 
varied  circumstance  that  makes  up  the  yearly 
movement  of  a  people's  life. 

It  would  be  less  than  just  to  say  that  Green's 
pages  do  not  reveal  the  variety  of  English  life  the 
centuries  through.  It  is  his  glory,  indeed,  as  all 
the  world  knows,  to  have  broadened  and  diversified 
the  whole  scale  of  English  history.  Nowhere  else 
within  the  compass  of  a  single  book  can  one  find 
so  many  sides  of  the  great  English  story  displayed 
with  so  deep  and  just  an  appreciation  of  them  all, 
or  of  the  part  of  each  in  making  up  the  whole. 
Green  is  the  one  man  among  English  historians 
who  has  restored  the  great  fabric  of  the  nation's 
history  where  its  architecture  was  obscure,  and  its 
details  were  likely  to  be  lost  or  forgotten.  Once 
more,  because  of  him,  the  vast  Gothic  structure 
stands  complete,  its  majesty  and  firm  grace  en 
hanced  at  every  point  by  the  fine  tracery  of  its 
restored  details. 

Where  so  much  is  done,  it  is  no  doubt  unreason 
able  to  ask  for  more.  But  the  very  architectural 
symmetry  of  this  great  book  imposes  a  limitation 
upon  it.  It  is  full  of  a  certain  sort  of  variety ;  but 


THE  TRTTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  179 

it  is  only  the  variety  of  a  great  plan's  detail,  not 
the  variety  of  English  life.  The  noble  structure 
obeys  its  own  laws  rather  than  the  laws  of  a  peo 
ple's  fortunes.  It  is  a  monument  conceived  and 
reared  by  a  consummate  artist,  and  it  wears  upon 
its  every  line  some  part  of  the  image  it  was  meant 
to  bear,  of  a  great,  complex,  aspiring  national  exis 
tence.  But,  though  it  symbolizes,  it  does  not  con 
tain  that  life.  It  has  none  of  the  irregularity  of 
the  actual  experiences  of  men  and  communities. 
It  explains,  but  it  does  not  contain,  their  variety. 
The  history  of  every  nation  has  certainly  a  plan 
which  the  historian  must  see  and  reproduce ;  but 
he  must  reconstruct  the  people's  life,  not  merely 
expound  it.  The  scope  of  his  method  must  be  as 
great  as  the  variety  of  his  subject ;  it  must  change 
with  each  change  of  mood,  respond  to  each  varying 
impulse  in  the  great  process  of  events.  No  rigor 
of  a  stately  style  must  be  suffered  to  exclude  the 
lively  touches  of  humor  or  the  rude  sallies  of 
strength  that  mark  it  everywhere.  The  plan  of 
the  telling  must  answer  to  the  plan  of  the  fact,  — 
must  be  as  elastic  as  the  topics  are  mobile.  The 
matter  should  rule  the  plan,  not  the  plan  the  mat 
ter. 

The  ideal  is  infinitely  difficult,  if,  indeed,  it  be 
possible  to  any  man  not  Shakespearean ;  but  the 


180      THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

difficulty  of  attaining  it  is  often  unnecessarily  en 
hanced.  Ordinarily  the  historian's  preparation  for 
his  task  is  such  as  to  make  it  unlikely  he  will 
perform  it  naturally.  He  goes  first,  with  infinite 
and  admirable  labor,  through  all  the  labyrinth  of 
document  and  detail  that  lies  up  and  down  his 
subject ;  collects  masses  of  matter  great  and  small, 
for  substance,  verification,  illustration ;  piles  his 
notes  volumes  high ;  reads  far  and  wide  upon  the 
tracks  of  his  matter,  and  makes  page  upon  page 
of  references ;  and  then,  thoroughly  stuffed  and 
sophisticated,  turns  back  and  begins  his  narrative. 
'T  is  impossible  then  that  he  should  begin  naturally. 
He  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  all  the  in 
termediate  way  from  beginning  to  end ;  he  has  made 
up  his  mind  about  too  many  things ;  uses  his  details 
with  a  too  free  and  familiar  mastery,  not  like  one 
who  tells  a  story  so  much  as  like  one  who  dissects  a 
cadaver.  Having  swept  his  details  together  before 
hand,  like  so  much  scientific  material,  he  discourses 
upon  them  like  a  demonstrator,  —  thinks  too  little 
in  subjection  to  them.  They  no  longer  make  a 
fresh  impression  upon  him.  They  are  his  tools, 
not  his  objects  of  vision. 

It  is  not  by  such  a  process  that  a  narrative  is 
made  vital  and  true.  It  does  not  do  to  lose  the 
point  of  view  of  the  first  listener  to  the  tale,  or  to 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  181 

rearrange  the  matter  too  much  out  of  the  order  of 
nature.  You  must  instruct  your  reader  as  the 
events  themselves  would  have  instructed  him,  had 
he  been  able  to  note  them  as  they  passed.  The 
historian  must  not  lose  his  own  fresh  view  of  the 
scene  as  it  passed  and  changed  more  and  more 
from  year  to  year  and  from  age  to  age.  He  must 
keep  with  the  generation  of  which  he  writes,  not 
be  too  quick  to  be  wiser  than  they  were  or  look 
back  upon  them  in  his  narrative  with  head  over 
shoulder.  He  must  write  of  them  always  in  the 
atmosphere  they  themselves  breathed,  not  hastening 
to  judge  them,  but  striving  only  to  realize  them  at 
every  turn  of  the  story,  to  make  their  thoughts 
his  own,  and  call  their  lives  back  again,  rebuilding 
the  very  stage  upon  which  they  played  their  parts. 
Bring  the  end  of  your  story  to  mind  while  you  set 
about  telling  its  beginning,  and  it  seems  to  have 
no  parts :  beginning,  middle,  end,  are  all  as  one,  — 
are  merely  like  parts  of  a  pattern  which  you  see  as 
a  single  thing  stamped  upon  the  stuff  under  your 
hand. 

Try  the  method  with  the  history  of  our  own  land 
and  people.  How  will  you  begin  ?  Will  you  start 
with  a  modern  map  and  a  careful  topographical 
description  of  the  continent?  And  then,  having 
made  your  nineteenth-century  framework  for  the 


182  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

narrative,  will  you  ask  your  reader  to  turn  back 
and  see  the  seventeenth  century,  and  those  lonely 
ships  coming  in  at  the  capes  of  the  Chesapeake  ? 
He  will  never  see  them  so  long  as  you  compel  him 
to  stand  here  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 
and  look  at  them  as  if  through  a  long  retrospect. 
The  attention  both  of  the  narrator  and  of  the 
reader,  if  history  is  to  be  seen  aright,  must  look 
forward,  not  backward.  It  must  see  with  a  con 
temporaneous  eye.  Let  the  historian,  if  he  be 
wise,  know  no  more  of  the  history  as  he  writes 
than  might  have  been  known  in  the  age  and  day 
of  which  he  is  writing.  A  trifle  too  much  know 
ledge  will  undo  him.  It  will  break  the  spell  for 
his  imagination.  It  will  spoil  the  magic  by  which 
he  may  raise  again  the  image  of  days  that  are 
gone.  He  must  of  course  know  the  large  lines  of 
his  story ;  it  must  lie  as  a  whole  in  his  mind.  His 
very  art  demands  that,  in  order  that  he  may  know 
and  keep  its  proportions.  But  the  details,  the 
passing  incidents  of  day  and  year,  must  come  fresh 
into  his  mind,  unreasoned  upon  as  yet,  untouched 
by  theory,  with  their  first  look  upon  them.  It  is 
here  that  original  documents  and  fresh  research 
will  serve  him.  He  must  look  far  and  wide  upon 
every  detail  of  the  time,  see  it  at  first  hand,  and 
paint  as  he  looks ;  selecting,  as  the  artist  must,  but 


THE   TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  183 

selecting  while  the  vision  is  fresh,  and  not  from 
old  sketches  laid  away  in  his  notes,  —  selecting 
from  the  life  itself. 

Let  him  remember  that  his  task  is  radically 
different  from  the  task  of  the  investigator.  The 
investigator  must  display  his  materials,  but  the 
historian  must  convey  his  impressions.  He  must 
stand  in  the  presence  of  life^and  reproduce-  it  in 
his  narrative  ;  must  recover  a  pastage ;  make  dead 
generations  live  again  and  breathe  their  own  air ; 
show  tl^m_native  and  at  home  upon  his  page.  To 
do  this,  his  own  impressions  must  be  as  fresh  as 
those  of  an  unlearned  reader,  his  own  curiosity  as 
keen  and  young  at  every  stage.  It  may  easily  be 
so  as  his  reading  thickens,  and  the  atmosphere  of 
the  age  comes  stealthily  into  his  thought,  if  only 
he  take  care  to  push  forward  the  actual  writing  of 
his  narrative  at  an  equal  pace  with  his  reading, 
painting  thus  always  direct  from  the  image  itself. 
His  knowledge  of  the  great  outlines  and  bulks  of 
the  picture  will  be  his  sufficient  guide  and  restraint 
the  while,  will  give  proportion  to  the  individual 
strokes  of  his  work.  But  it  will  not  check  his  zest, 
or  sophisticate  his  fresh  recovery  of  the  life  that  is 
in  the  crowding  colors  of  the  canvas. 

A  nineteenth-century  plan  laid  like  a  standard 
and  measure  upon  a  seventeenth-century  narrative 


184  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTEE. 

will  infallibly  twist  it  and  make  it  false.  Lay  a 
modern  map  before  the  first  settlers  at  Jamestown 
and  Plymouth,  and  then  bid  them  discover  and 
occupy  the  continent.  With  how  superior  a  nine 
teenth-century  wonder  and  pity  will  you  see  them 
grope,  and  stumble,  and  falter !  How  like  children 
they  will  seem  to  you,  and  how  simple  their  age, 
and  ignorant !  As  stalwart  men  as  you  they  were 
in  fact ;  mayhap  wiser  and  braver  too ;  as  fit  to 
occupy  a  continent  as  you  are  to  draw  it  upon 
paper.  If  you  would  know  them,  go  back  to  their 
age ;  breed  yourself  a  pioneer  and  woodsman  ;  look 
to  find  the  South  Sea  up  the  nearest  northwest 
branch  of  the  spreading  river  at  your  feet ;  discover 
and  occupy  the  wilderness  with  them  ;  dream  what 
may  be  beyond  the  near  hills,  and  long  all  day  to 
see  a  sail  upon  the  silent  sea  ;  go  back  to  them  and 
see  them  in  their  habit  as  they  lived. 

The  picturesque  writers  of  history  have  all  along 
been  right  in  theory :  they  have  been  wrong  only 
in  practice.  It  is  a  picture  of  the  past  we  want  — 
its  express  image  and  feature ;  but  we  want  the 
true  picture  and  not  simply  the  theatrical  matter,  — 
the  manner  of  Rembrandt  rather  than  of  Rubens. 
All  life  may  be  pictured,  but  not  all  of  life  is  pic 
turesque.  No  great,  no  true  historian  would  put 
false  or  adventitious  colors  into  his  narrative,  or 


THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER.  185 

let  a  glamour  rest  where  in  fact  it  never  was. 
The  writers  who  select  an  incident  merely  because 
it  is  striking  or  dramatic  are  shallow  fellows. 
They  see  only  with  the  eye's  retina,  not  with  that 
deep  vision  whose  images  lie  where  thought  and 
reason  sit.  The  real  drama  of  life  is  disclosed 
only  with  the  whole  picture  ;  and  that  only  the 
deep  and  fervid  student  will  see,  whose  mind  goes 
daily  fresh  to  the  details,  whose  narrative  runs 
always  in  the  authentic  colors  of  nature,  whose  art 
it  is  to  see,  and  to  paint  what  he  sees. 

It  is  thus  and  only  thus  we  shall  have  the  truth 
of  the  matter :  by  art,  —  by  the  most  difficult  of  all 
arts ;  by  fresh  study  and  first-hand  vision  ;  at  the 
mouths  of  men  who  stand  in  the  midst  of  old  let 
ters  and  dusty  documents  and  neglected  records, 
not  like  antiquarians,  but  like  those  who  see  a  dis 
tant  country  and  a  far-away  people  before  their 
very  eyes,  as  real,  as  full  of  life  and  hope  and  inci 
dent,  as  the  day  in  which  they  themselves  live.  Let 
us  have  done  with  humbug  and  come  to  plain 
speech.  The  historian  needs  an  imagination  quite 
as  much  as  he  needs  scholarship,  and  consummate 
literary  art  as  much  as  candor  and  common  honesty. 
Histories  are  written  in  order  that  the  bulk  of  men 
may  read  and  realize  ;  and  it  is  as  bad  to  bungle 
the  telling  of  the  story  as  to  lie,  as  fatal  to  lack  a 


186  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  MATTER. 

vocabulary  as  to  lack  knowledge.  In  no  case  can 
you  do  more  than  convey  an  impression,  so  various 
and  complex  is  the  matter.  If  you  convey  a  false 
impression,  what  difference  does  it  make  how  you 
convey  it  ?  In  the  whole  process  there  is  a  nice 
adjustment  of  means  to  ends  which  only  the  artist 
can  manage.  There  is  an  art  of  lying ;  —  there  is 
equally  an  art,  —  an  infinitely  more  difficult  art, 
—  of  telling  the  truth. 


VII. 

A  CALENDAR  OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

BEFORE  a  calendar  of  great  Americans  can  be 
made  out,  a  valid  canon  of  Americanism  must  first 
be  established.  Not  every  great  man  born  and 
bred  in  America  was  a  great  "  American."  Some 
of  the  notable  men  born  among  us  were  simply 
great  Englishmen  ;  others  had  in  all  the  habits  of 
their  thought  and  life  the  strong  flavor  of  a  pecul 
iar  region,  and  were  great  New  Englanders  or 
great  Southerners  ;  others,  masters  in  the  fields  of 
science  or  of  pure  thought,  showed  nothing  either 
distinctively  national  or  characteristically  provincial, 
and  were  simply  great  men  ;  while  a  few  displayed 
odd  cross-strains  of  blood  or  breeding.  The  great 
Englishmen  bred  in  America,  like  Hamilton  and 
Madison ;  the  great  provincials,  like  John  Adams 
and  Calhoun  ;  the  authors  of  such  thought  as  might 
have  been  native  to  any  clime,  like  Asa  Gray  and 
Emerson ;  and  the  men  of  mixed  breed,  like  Jeffer 
son  and  Benton,  —  must  be  excluded  from  our 
present  list.  We  must  pick  out  men  who  have 


188     A   CALENDAR   OF  GEEAT  AMERICANS. 

created  or  exemplified  a  distinctively  American 
standard  and  type  of  greatness. 

To  make  such  a  selection  is  not  to  create  an  arti 
ficial  standard  of  greatness,  or  to  claim  that  great 
ness  is  in  any  case  hallowed  or  exalted  merely 
because  it  is  American.  It  is  simply  to  recognize 
a  peculiar  stamp  of  character,  a  special  make-up  of 
mind  and  faculties,  as  the  specific  product  of  our 
national  life,  not  displacing  or  eclipsing  talents  of 
a  different  kind,  but  supplementing  them,  and  so 
adding  to  the  world's  variety.  There  is  an  Ameri 
can  type  of  man,  and  those  who  have  exhibited  this 
type  with  a  certain  unmistakable  distinction  and 
perfection  have  been  great  "  Americans."  It  has 
required  the  utmost  variety  of  character  and  energy 
to  establish  a  great  nation,  with  a  polity  at  once 
free  and  firm,  upon  this  continent,  and  no  sound 
type  of  manliness  could  have  been  dispensed  with 
in  the  effort.  We  could  no  more  have  done  with 
out  our  great  Englishmen,  to  keep  the  past  stead 
ily  in  mind  and  make  every  change  conservative 
of  principle,  than  we  could  have  done  without 
the  men  whose  whole  impulse  was  forward,  whose 
whole  genius  was  for  origination,  natural  masters 
of  the  art  of  subduing  a  wilderness. 

Certainly  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  our  his 
tory  is  the  figure  of  Alexander  Hamilton.  Ameri- 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.     189 

can  historians,  though  compelled  always  to  admire 
him,  often  in  spite  of  themselves,  have  been  in 
clined,  like  the  mass  of  men  in  his  own  day,  to  look 
at  him  askance.  They  hint,  when  they  do  not 
plainly  say,  that  he  was  not  "  American."  He  re 
jected,  if  he  did  not  despise,  democratic  principles ; 
advocated  a  government  as  strong,  almost,  as  a 
monarchy  ;  and  defended  the  government  which 
was  actually  set  up,  like  the  skilled  advocate  he 
was,  only  because  it  was  the  strongest  that  could 
be  had  under  the  circumstances.  He  believed  in 
authority,  and  he  had  no  faith  in  the  aggregate 
wisdom  of  masses  of  men.  He  had,  it  is  true,  that 
deep  and  passionate  love  of  liberty,  and  that  stead 
fast  purpose  in  the  maintenance  of  it,  that  mark 
the  best  Englishmen  everywhere  ;  but  his  ideas  of 
government  stuck  fast  in  the  old-world  politics,  and 
his  statesmanship  was  of  Europe  rather  than  of 
America.  And  yet  the  genius  and  the  steadfast 
spirit  of  this  man  were  absolutely  indispensable  to 
us.  No  one  less  masterful,  no  one  less  resolute 
than  he  to  drill  the  minority,  if  necessary,  to  have 
their  way  against  the  majority,  could  have  done  the 
great  work  of  organization  by  which  he  established 
the  national  credit,  and  with  the  national  credit  the 
national  government  itself.  A  pliant,  popular, 
optimistic  man  would  have  failed  utterly  in  the 


190     A   CALENDAR   OF  GEE  AT  AMERICANS. 

task.  A  great  radical  mind  in  his  place  would 
have  brought  disaster  upon  us :  only  a  great  ^*p- 
seryative  genius  could  have  succeeded.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that,  without  men  of  Hamilton's  cast  of 
mind,  building  the  past  into  the  future  with  a  deep 
passion  for  order  and  old  wisdom,  our  national  life 
would  have  miscarried  at  the  very  first.  This  tried 
English  talent  for  conservation  gave  to  onrjibre  at 
the,  very  outset  the  stiffness  of  maturity. 

James  Madison,  too,  we  may  be  said  to  have  in 
herited.  His  invaluable  gifts  of  counsel  were  of 
the  sort  so  happily  imparted  to  us  with  our  Eng 
lish  blood  at  the  first  planting  of  the  States  which 
formed  the  Union.  A  grave  and  prudent  man, 
and  yet  brave  withal  when  new  counsel  was  to  be 
taken,  he  stands  at  the  beginning  of  our  national 
history,  even  in  his  young  manhood,  as  he  faced 
and  led  the  constitutional s  convention,  a  type  of 
the  slow  and  thoughtful  English  genius  for  affairs. 
He  held  old  and  tested  convictions  of  the  uses  of 
liberty ;  he  was  competently  read  in  the  history 
of  government ;  processes  of  revolution  were  in  his 
thought  no  more  than  processes  of  adaptation  :  ex 
igencies  were  to  be  met  by  modification,  not  by 
experiment.  His  reasonable  spirit  runs  through  all 
the  proceedings  of  the  great  convention  that  gave 
us  the  Constitution,  and  that  noble  instrument 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      191 

seems  the  product  of  character  like  his.  For  all  it 
is  so  American  in  its  content,  it  is  in  its  method  a 
thoroughly  English  production,  so  full  is  it  of  old 
principles,  so  conservative  of  experience,  so  care 
fully  compounded  of  compromises,  of  concessions 
made  and  accepted.  Such  men  are  of  a  stock  so 
fine  as  to  need  no  titles  to  make  it  noble,  and  yet 
so  old  and  so  distinguished  as  actually  to  bear  the 
chief  titles  of  English  liberty.  Madison  came  of 
the  long  line  of  English  constitutional  statesmen. 

There  is  a  type  of  genius  which  closely  ap 
proaches  this  in  character,  but  which  is,  neverthe 
less,  distinctively  American.  It  is  to  be  seen  in 
John^arshaUjindjLn  Daniel  Webster!  In  these 
men  a  new  set  of  ideas  find  expression,  ideas  which 
all  the  world  has  received  as  American.  Webster 
was  not  an  English  but  an  American  constitutional 
statesman.  For  the  English  statesman  constitu 
tional  issues  are  issues  of  policy  rather  than  issues 
of  law.  He  constantly  handles  questions  of  change : 
his  constitution  is  always  a-making.  He  must  at 
every  turn  construct,  and  he  is  deemed  conservative 
if  only  his  rule  be  consistency  and  continuity  with 
the  past.  He  will  search  diligently  for  precedent, 
but  he  is  content  if  the  precedent  contain  only  a 
germ  of  the  policy  he  proposes.  His  standards  are 
set  him,  not  by  law,  but  by  opinion :  his  constitu- 


192      A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

tion  is  an  ideal  of  cautious  and  orderly  change. 
Its  fixed  element  is  the  conception  of  political 
liberty :  a  conception  which,  though  steeped  in 
history,  must  ever  be  added  to  and  altered  by 
social  change.  The  American  constitutional  atntps- 
man,  on  the  contrary,  constructs  pnlimog  1iJ?p  a 
lawyer.  The  standard  with  which  he  must  square 
his  conduct  is  set  him  by  a  document  upon  whose 
definite  sentences  the  whole  structure  of  the  gov 
ernment  directly  rests.  That  document,  moreover, 
is  the  concrete  embodiment  of  a  peculiar  theory  of 
government.  That  theory  is,  that  definitive  laws, 
selected  by  a  power  outside  the  government,  are 
the  structural  iron  of  the  entire  fabric  of  politics, 
and  that  nothing  which  cannot  be  constructed 
upon  this  stiff  framework  is  a  safe  or  legitimate 
part  of  policy.  Law  is,  in  his  conception,  creative 
of  states,  and  they  live  only  by  such  permissions 
as  they  can  extract  from  it.  The  functions  of  the 
judge  and  the  functions  of  the  man  of  affairs  have, 
therefore,  been  very  closely  related  in  our  history, 
and  John  Marshall,  scarcely  less  than  Daniel 
Webster,  was  a  constitutional  statesman.  With 
all  Madison's  conservative  temper  and  wide-eyed 
prudence  in  counsel,  the  subject-matter  of  thought 
for  both  of  these  men  was  not  English  liberty  or 
the  experience  of  men  everywhere  in  self-govern- 


A  CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      193 

ment,  but  the  meaning  stored  up  in  the  explicit 
sentences  of  a  written  fundamental  law.  They 
taught  men  the  new  —  the  American  —  art  of 
extracting  life  out  of  the  letter,  not  of  statutes 
merely  (that  art  was  not  new),  but  of  statute-built 
institutions  and  documented  governments :  the  art 
of  saturating  politics  with  law  without  grossly  dis 
coloring  law  with  politics.  Other  nations  have 
had  written  constitutions,  but  no  other  nation  has 
ever  filled  a  written  constitution  with  this  singularly 
compounded  content,  of  a  sound  legal  conscience 
and  a  strong  national  purpose.  It  would  have 
been  easy  to  deal  with  our  Constitution  like  subtle 
dialecticians  ;  but  Webster  and  Marshall  did  much 
more  and  much  better  than  that.  They  viewed 
the  fundamental  law  as  a  great  organic  product,  a 
vehicle  of  life  as  well  as  a  charter  of  authority ;  in 
disclosing  its  life  they  did  not  damage  its  tissue ; 
and  in  thus  expanding  the  law  without  impairing 
its  structure  or  authority  they  made  great  contri 
butions  alike  to  statesmanship  and  to  jurisprudence. 
Our  notable  literature  of  decision  and  commentary 
in  the  field  of  constitutional  law  is  America's 
distinctive  *gift  to  the  history  and  the  science  of 
law.  John  Marshall  wrought  out  much  of  its  sub 
stance  ;  "Webster  diffused  its  great  body  of  princi 
ples  throughout  national  policy,  mediating  between 


194     A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

the  law  and  affairs.  The  figures  of  the  two  men 
must  hold  the  eye  of  the  world  as  the  figures  of 
two  great  national  representatives,  as  the  figures 
of  two  great  Americans. 

The  representative  national  greatness  and  func 
tion  of  these  men  appear  more  clearly  still  when 
they  are  contrasted  with  men  like  John  Adams 
and  John  C.  Calhoun,  whose  greatness  was  not 
national.  John  Adams  represented  one  element  of 
our  national  character,  and  represented  it  nobly, 
with  a  singular  force  and  greatness.  He  was  an 
eminent  Puritan  statesman,  and  the  Puritan  ingre 
dient  has  colored  all  our  national  life.  We  have 
got  strength  and  persistency  and  some  part  of  our 
steady  moral  purpose  from  it.  But  in  the  quick 
growth  and  exuberant  expansion  of  the  nation  it 
has  been  only  one  element  among  many.  The 
Puritan  blood  has  mixed  with  many  another  strain. 
The  stiff  Puritan  character  has  been  mellowed  by 
many  a  transfusion  of  gentler  and  more  hopeful 
elements.  So  soon  as  the  Adams  fashion  of  man 
became  more  narrow,  intense,  acidulous,  intractable, 
according  to  the  tendencies  of  its  nature,  in  the 
person  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  it  lost  the  sym 
pathy,  lost  even  the  tolerance,  of  the  country,  and 
the  national  choice  took  its  reckless  leap  from  a 
Puritan  President  to  Andrew  Jackson,  a  man  cast 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GEE  AT  AMERICANS.      195 

in  the  rough  original  pattern  of  American  life  at 
the  heart  of  the  continent.  John  Adams  had  not 
himself  been  a  very  acceptable  President.  He  had 
none  of  the  national  optimism,  and  could  not  un 
derstand  those  who  did  have  it.  He  had  none  of 
the  characteristic  adaptability  of  the  delocalized 
American,  and  was  just  a  bit  ridiculous  in  his  stiff 
ness  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  for  all  he  was  so 
honorable  and  so  imposing.  His  type,  —  be  it  said 
without  disrespect,  —  was  provincial.  Unmistaka 
bly  a  great  man,  his  greatness  was  of  the  common 
wealth,  not  of  the  empire. 

Calhoun,  too,  was  a  great  provincial.  Although 
a  giant,  he  had  no  heart  to  use  his  great  strength 
for  national  purposes.  In  his  youth,  it  is  true,  he 
did  catch  some  of  the  generous  ardor  for  national 
enterprise  which  filled  the  air  in  his  day ;  and  all 
his  life  through,  with  a  truly  pathetic  earnestness, 
he  retained  his  affection  for  his  first  ideal.  But 
when  the  rights  and  interests  of  his  section  were 
made  to  appear  incompatible  with  a  liberal  and 
boldly  constructive  interpretation  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  he  fell  out  of  national  counsels  and  devoted 
all  the  strength  of  his  extraordinary  mind  to  hold 
ing  the  nation's  thought  and  power  back  within 
the  strait  limits  of  a  literal  construction  of  the  law. 
In  powers  of  reasoning  his  mind  deserves  to  rank 


196      A   CALENDAR   OF  GEE  AT  AMERICANS. 

with  Webster's  and  Marshall's  :  he  handled  ques 
tions  of  law  like  a  master,  as  they  did.  He  had, 
moreover,  a  keen  insight  into  the  essential  princi 
ples  and  character  of  liberty.  His  thought  moved 
eloquently  along  some  of  the  oldest  and  safest  lines 
of  English  thought  in  the  field  of  government. 
He  made  substantive  contributions  to  the  perma 
nent  philosophy  of  politics.  His  reasoning  has 
been  discredited,  not  so  much  because  it  was  not 
theoretically  sound  within  its  limits,  as  because  its 
practical  outcome  was  a  negation  which  embar 
rassed  the  whole  movement  of  national  affairs. 
He  would  have  held  the  nation  still,  in  an  old 
equipoise,  at  one  time  normal  enough,  but  impossi 
ble  to  maintain.  Webster  and  Marshall  gave  leave 
to  the  energy  of  change  inherent  in  all  the  na 
tional  life,  making  law  a  rule,  but  not  an  interdict ; 
a  living  guide,  but  not  a  blind  and  rigid  discipline. 
Calhoun  sought  to  fix,  law  as  a  barrier  across  the 
path  of  policy,  commanding  the  life  of  the  nation 
to  stand  still.  The  strength  displayed  in  the  effort, 
the  intellectual  power  and  address,  abundantly  en 
title  him  to  be  called  great ;  but  his  purpose  was 
not  national.  It  regarded  only  a  section  of  the 
country,  and  marked  him,  —  again  be  it  said  with 
all  respect,  —  a  great  provincial. 

Jefferson  was  not  a  thorough  American  because 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      197 

of  the  strain  of  French  philosophy  that  permeated 
and  weakened  all  his  jhought.  Benton  was  alto 
gether  American  so  far  as  the  natural  strain  of  his 
blood  was  concerned,  but  he  had  encumbered  his 
natural  parts  and  inclinations  with  a  mass  of  undi 
gested  and  shapeless  learning.  Bred  in  the  West, 
where  everything  was  new,  he  had  filled  his  head 
with  the  thought  of  books  (evidently  very  poor 
books)  which  exhibited  the  ideals  of  communities 
in  which  everything  was  old.  He  thought  of  the 
Roman  Senate  when  he  sat  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  He  paraded  classical  figures  when 
ever  he  spoke,  upon  a  stage  where  both  their 
costume  and  their  action  seemed  grotesque.  A 
pedantic  frontiersman,  he  was  a  living  and  a 
pompous  antinomy.  Meant  by  nature  to  be  an 
American,  he  spoiled  the  plan  by  applying  a  most 
unsuitable  gloss  of  shallow  and  irrelevant  learning. 
Jefferson  was  of  course  an  almost  immeasurably 
greater  man  than  Benton,  but  he  was  un-American 
in  somewhat  the  same  way.  He  brought  ji  foreign 
product  of  thoug^  to  a  market  where  no_  natural 
or  wholesome  demand  for  it  could  exist.  There 
were  not  two  incompatible  parts  in  him,  as  in  Ben- 
ton's  case :  he  was  a  philosophical  radical  by  nature 
as  well  as  by  acquirement ;  his  reading  and  his 
temperament  went  suitably  together.  The  man  is 


198      A  CALENDAR   OF  GEE  AT  AMERICANS. 

homogeneous  throughout.  The  American  shows  in 
him  very  plainly,  too,  notwithstanding  the  strong 
and  inherent  dash  of  what  was  foreign  in  his 
make-up.  He  was  a  natural  leader  and  manager 
of  men,  not  because  he  was  imperative  or  master 
ful,  but  because  of  a  native  shrewdness,  tact,  and 
sagacity,  an  inborn  art  and  aptness  for  combination, 
such  as  no  Frenchman  ever  displayed  in  the  man 
agement  of  common  men.  Jefferson  had  just  a 
touch  of  rusticity  about  him,  besides  ;  and  it  was 
not  pretense  on  his  part  or  merely  a  love  of  power 
that  made  him  democratic.  His  indiscriminate 
hospitality,  his  almost  passionate  love  for  the  sim 
ple  equality  of  country  life,  his  steady  devotion  to 
what  he  deemed  to  be  the  cause  of  the  people,  all 
mark  him  a  genuine  democrat,  a  nature  native  to 
America.  It  is  his  speculative  philosophy  that  is 
exotk^jind  thatjnmsKke  a  falsTand  artificial  note 
through  all  his  thought.  It  was  un^AmerjganJn 
being  abstract,  sentimental,  rationalisj^jrather 
than  practical.  That  he  held  it  sincerely  need  not 
be  doubted  ;  but  the  more  sincerely  he  accepted  it 
so  much  the  more  thoroughly  was  he  un-American. 
His  writings  lack  hard  and  practical^  sense.  _Lib- 
erty,  among  us,  is  not  a  sentiment,  but_a__prp,duct 

of    experience;    its    dp.riyatio.TI    1>g    nnt-.rat.innaJigtiflT 

but  practical.     It  is  a  hard-headed  spirit  of  inde- 


A   CALENDAE   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      199 

pendence,  not  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism.  The 
very  Derated  quality  of  J  eitefson's  principles  gives 
them  an  air  of  insincerity,  which  attaches  to  them 
rathecJbecause  they  do  not  suit  the  climate  of  the 
countr^and^  the  practical  aspect  of  affairs  than  be- 
causejfchey  do  not  suit  the  character  of  Jefferson' s 
mind  and  the  atmosphere  of  abstract  philosophy . 
It  is  because  both  they  and  the  philosophical 
system  of  which  they  form  a  part  do  seem  suitable 
to  his  mind  and  character,  that  we  must  pronounce 
him,  though  a  great  man,  not  a  great  American. 

It  is  by  the  frank  consideration  of  such  concrete 
cases  that  we  may  construct,  both  negatively  and 
affirmatively,  our  canons  of  Americanism.  The 
American  spirit  is  something  more  than  the  old, 
the  immemorial  Saxon  spirit  of  liberty  from  which 
it  sprung.  It  haa  bQQn  bred  by  th"  nm^>i"n" 
attending  the  great  task  which  we  have  all  the 
century  been  carrying  forward  :  the  task,  at  once 
material  and  ideal?  of  subduing  ^  wilderness  .and 
covering  all  the  wide  stretches  of  a  vast  continent 
with  a  single  free  and^  stable  polity.  It  is,  accord 
ingly,  above  all  things,  a  ^hopeful  rmrl  rrnifidfnt 
spirit.  It  is  progressive,  optimistically  progressive, 
and  ambitious  of  objects  of  ^national  scope  and 
advantage.  It  is  unpedantic,  unjaroyiiicial,  unspec- 
ulative,  unf astidio_as ;  regardful  of  law,  but  as  using 


200      A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

it,  not  as  being  used  by  it  or  dominated  by  any 
formalism  whatever  ;  in  a  sense  unrefined,  because 
full  of  rude  force  ;  but  prompted  by  large  and  gen 
erous  motives,  and  often  as  tolerant  as  it  is  reso 
lute.  No  one  man,  unless  it  be  Lincoln,  has  ever 
proved  big  or  various  enough  to  embody  this  active 
and  full-hearted  spirit  in  all  its  qualities ;  and  the 
men  who  have  been  too  narrow  or  too  speculative 
or  too  pedantic  to  represent  it  have,  nevertheless, 
added  to  the  strong  and  stirring  variety  of  our 
national  life,  making  it  fuller  and  richer  in  motive 
and  energy ;  but  its  several  aspects  are  none  the 
less  noteworthy  as  they  separately  appear  in  differ 
ent  men. 

One  of  the  first  men  to  exhibit  this  American 
spirit  with  an  unmistakable  touch  of  greatness  and 
distinction  was  Benjamin  Franklin.  It  was  char 
acteristic  of  America  that  this  self-made  man  should 
become  a  philosopher,  a  founder  of  philosophical 
societies,  an  authoritative  man  of  science ;  that  his 
philosophy  of  life  should  be  so  homely  and  so  prac 
tical  in  its  maxims,  and  uttered  with  so  shrewd  a 
wit ;  that  one  region  should  be  his  birthplace  and 
another  his  home;  that  he  should  favor  effective 
political  union  among  the  colonies  from  the  first, 
and  should  play  a  sage  and  active  part  in  the 
establishment  of  national  independence  and  the 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GEEAT  AMERICANS.      201 

planning  of  a  national  organization  ;  and  that  he 
should  represent  his  countrymen  in  diplomacy 
abroad.  They  could  have  had  no  spokesman  who 
represented  more  sides  of  their  character.  Franklin 
was  a  sort  of  multiple  American.  He  was  versatile 
without  lacking  solidity ;  he  was  a  practical  states 
man  without  ceasing  to  be  a  sagacious  philosopher. 
He  came  of  the  people,  and  was  democratic ;  but 
he  had  raised  himself  out  of  the  general  mass  of 
unnamed  men,  and  so  stood  for  the  democratic  law, 
not  of  equality,  buj^f  j^lf-selejstio^ 
One  can  feel  sure  that  Franklin  would  have  suc 
ceeded  in  any  part  of  the  national  life  that  it  might 
have  fallen  to  his  lot  to  take  part  in.  He  will 
stand  the  final  and  characteristic  test  of  American 
ism  :  he  would  unquestionably  have  made  a  success 
ful  frontiersman,  capable  at  once  of  wielding  the 
axe  and  of  administering  justice  from  the  fallen 
trunk. 

Washington  hardly  seems  an  American,  as  most 
of  his  biographers  depict  him.  He  is  too  colorless, 
too  cold,  too  prudent.  He  seems  more  like  a  wise 
and  dispassionate  Mr.  Alworthy,  advising  a  nation 
as  he  would  a  parish,  than  like  a  man  building 
states  and  marshaling  a  nation  in  a  wilderness. 
But  the  real  Washington  was  as  thoroughly  an 
American  as  Jackson  or  Lincoln.  What  we  take 


202     A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

for  lack  of  passion  in  him  was  but  the  reserve  and 
self-mastery  natural  to  a  man  of  his  class  and 
breeding  in  Virginia.  He  was  no  parlor  politician, 
either.  He  had  seen  the  frontier,  and  far  beyond 
it  where  the  French  forts  lay.  He  knew  the  rough 
life  of  the  country  as  few  other  men  could.  His 
thoughts  did  not  live  at  Mount  Vernon.  He  knew 
difficulty  as  intimately  and  faced  it  always  with  as 
quiet  a  mastery  as  William  the  Silent.  This  calm, 
straightforward,  high-spirited  man,  making  charts 
of  the  western  country,  noting  the  natural  land 
and  water  routes  into  the  heart  of  the  continent, 
marking  how  the  French  power  lay,  conceiving  the 
policy  which  should  dispossess  it,  and  the  engineer 
ing  achievements  which  should  make  the  utmost 
ources  of  the  land  our  own ;  counseling  Brad- 
how  to  enter  the  forest,  but  not  deserting  him 
because  he  would  not  take  advice ;  planning  step 
by  step,  by  patient  correspondence  with  influential 
men  everywhere,  the  meetings,  conferences,  com 
mon  resolves  which  were  finally  to  bring  the  great 
constitutional  convention  together ;  planning,  too, 
always  for  the  country  as  well  as  for  Virginia ;  and 
presiding  at  last  over  the  establishment  and  organ 
ization  of  the  government  of  the  Union :  he  certainly 
. —  the  most  suitable  instrument  of  the  national  life 
i*t  every  moment  of  crisis  —  is  a  great  American. 


A  CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      203 

\ 
<Those  noble  worcfe  which  he   uttered  amidst   the 

first  doubtings  of  the  constitutional  convention 
might  serve  as  a  motto  for  the  best  efforts  of  lib 
erty  wherever  free  men  strive :  "  Let  us  raise  a 
standard  to  which  the  wise  and  honest  can  repair ; 
the  event  is  in  the  hand  of  God." 

In  Henry  Clay  we  have  an  American  of  a  most 
authentic  pattern.  There  was  no  man  of  his 
generation  who  represented  more  of  America  than 
he  did.  The  singular,  almost  irresistible  attraction 
he  had  for  men  of  every  class  and  every  tempera 
ment  came,  not  from  the  arts  of  the  politician,  but 
from  the  instant  sympathy  established  between  him 
and  every  fellow-countryman  of  his.  He  does  not 
seem  to  have  exercised  the  same  fascination  upon 
foreigners.  They  felt  toward  him  as  some  New 
Englanders  did :  he  seemed  to  them  plausible 
merely,  too  indiscriminately  open  and  cordial  to  be 
sincere,  —  a  bit  of  a  charlatan.  No  man  who  really 
takes  the  trouble  to  understand  Henry  Clay,  or 
who  has  quick  enough  parts  to  sympathize  with 
him,  can  deem  him  false.  It  is  the  odd  combina 
tion  of  two  different  elements  in  him  that  makes 
him  seem  irregular  and  inconstant.  His  nature 
was  of  the  West,  blown  through  with  quick  winds 
of  ardor  and  aggression,  a  bit  reckless  and  defiant ; 
but  his  art  was  of  the  East,  ready  with  soft  and 


204     A  CALENDAR    OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

placating  phrases,  reminiscent  of  old  and  reverenced 
ideals,  thoughtful  of  compromise  and  accommoda 
tion.  He  had  all  the  address  of  the  trained  and 
sophisticated  politician,  bred  in  an  old  and  sensitive 
society ;  but  his  purposes  ran  free  of  cautious  re 
straints,  and  his  real  ideals  were  those  of  the  some 
what  bumptious  Americanism  which  was  pushing 
the  frontier  forward  in  the  West,  which  believed 
itself  capable  of  doing  anything  it  might  put  its 
hand  to,  despised  conventional  restraints,  and 
followed  a  vague  but  resplendent  "  manifest  des 
tiny  "  with  lusty  hurrahs.  His  purposes  were  sin 
cere,  even  if  often  crude  and  uninstructed ;  it  was 
only  because  the  subtle  arts  of  politics  seemed  in 
consistent  with  the  direct  dash  and  bold  spirit  of 
the  man  that  they  sat  upon  him  like  an  insincer 
ity.  He  thoroughly,  and  by  mere  unconscious  sym 
pathy,  rejjresented  the  double  A^rica^liisLjlay, 
made  up  of  a  ffiest  which  hurried  and  gave  bold 
strokes,  and  of  an  Eastjvhich  held  back,  fearing 
the  pace,  thoughtful  and  mindful  of  the  instruc 
tive  past.  The  one  part  had  to  be  served  without 
offending  the  othei^jmd  that  was  Clay's  medi- 
atorial  function. 

AndrewJackson  was  altogether  of  the  West. 
Of  his  sincerity  nobody  has  ever  had  any  real 
doubt ;  and  his  Americanism  is  now  at  any  rate 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      205 

equally  unimpeachable.  He  was  like  Clay  with 
the  social  imagination  of  the  orator  and  the  art 
and  sophistication  of  the  Easter^n  politician  left  out. 
He  came  into  our  national  politics  like  a  cyclone 
from  off  the  Western  prairies.  Americans  of  the 
present  day  perceptibly  shudder  at  the  very  recol 
lection  of  Jackson.  He  seems  to  them  a  great 
Vandal,  playing  fast  and  loose  alike  with  institu 
tions  and  with  tested  and  established  policy,  de 
bauching  politics  like  a  modern  spoilsman.  But 
whether  we  would  accept  him  as  a  type  of  ourselves 
or  not,  the  men  of  his  own  day  accepted  him  with 
enthusiasm.  He  did  not  need  to  be  explained  to 
them.  They  crowded  to  his  standard  like  men 
free  at  last,  after  long  and  tedious  restraint,  to 
make  their  own  choice,  follow  their  own  man. 
There  can  be  no  mistaking  the  spontaneity  of  the 
thoroughgoing  support  he  received.  His  was  the 
new  type  of  energy  and  self-confidence  bred  byi 
life  outside  the  States  that  had  been  colonies.  It 
was  a  terrible  energy,  threatening  sheer  destruction 
to  many  a  carefully  wrought  arrangement  handed 
on  to  us  from  the  past ;  it  was  a  perilous  self-con 
fidence,  founded  in  sheer  strength  rather  than  in 
wisdom.  The  government  did  not  pass  through 
the  throes  of  that  signal  awakening  of  the  new 
national  spirit  without  serious  rack  and  damage. 


206      A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

But  it  was  no  disease.  It  v^as  only  an  incautious, 
abounding,  madcap  strength  which  proved  so  dan 
gerous  in  its  readiness  for  every  rash  endeavor.  It 
was  necessary  that  the  West  should  be  let  into  the 
play :  it  was  even  necessary  that  she  should  assert 
her  right  to  the  leading  role.  It  was  done  with 
out  good  taste,  but  that  does  not  condemn  it.  We 
have  no  doubt  refined  and  schooled  the  hoyden 
influences  of  that  crude  time,  and  they  are  vastly 
safer  now  than  then,  when  they  first  came  bound 
ing  in  ;  but  they  mightily  stirred  ^ajad-£nricJi£d^  our 
blood  from  the^firsj^  Now  that  we  have  thoroughly 
suffered  this  Jackson  change  and  it  is  over,  we  are 
ready  to  recognize  it  as  quite  as  radically  American 
as  anything  in  all  our  history. 

thejjjupjffm&  American_.oi  jour-  history.  In  Clay, 
East  and  West  were  mixed  without  being  fused  or 
harmonized :  he  seems  like  two  men.  In  Jackson 
there  was  not  even  a  mixture  ;  he  was  all  of  a  piece, 
and  altogether  unacceptable  to  some  parts  of  the 
country,  —  a  frontier  statesman.  But  in  Lincoln 
the  elements  were  combined  andliarmonrzed.  The 
most  singular  thing  about  the  wonderful  career  of 
the  man  is  the  way  in  which  he  steadily  grew  into 
a  national  stature.  He  began  an  amorphous,  un- 
licked  cub,  bred  in  the  rudest  of  human  lairs; 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GEE  AT  AMERICANS.     207 

but,  as  he  grew,  everything  formed,  informed, 
transformed  him.  The  process  was  slow  but  un 
broken.  He  was  not  fit  to  be  President  until  he 
actually  became  President.  He  was  fit  then 
because,  learning  everything  as  he  went,  he  had 
found  out  how  much  there  was  to  learn,  and  had 
still  an  infinite  capacity  for  learning.  The  quiet 
voices  of  sentiment  and  murmurs  of  resolution 
that  went  whispering  through  the  land,  his  ear 
always  caught,  when  others  could  hear  nothing  but 
their  own  words.  He  never  ceased  to  be  a  common 
man  :  that  was  his  source  of  strength.  But  he 
was  a  common  man  with  genius,  a  genius  for  things 
American,  for  insight  into  the  common  thought, 
for  mastery  of  the  fundamental  things  of  politics 
that  inhere  in  human  nature  and  cast  hardly  more 
than  their  shadows  on  constitutions  ;  for  the  practi 
cal  niceties  of  affairs ;  for  judging  men  and  assessing 
arguments.  Jackson  had  no  social  imagination : 
no  unfamiliar  community  made  any  impression  on 
him.  His  whole  fibre  stiffened  young,  and  nothing 
afterward  could  modify  or  even  deeply  affect  it. 
But  Lincoln  was  always  a-making ;  he  would  have 
died  unfinished  if  the  terrible  storms  of  the  war 
had  not  stung  him  to  learn  in  those  four  years 
what  no  other  twenty  could  have  taught  him. 
And,  as  he  stands  there  in  his  complete  manhood, 


208     A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

at  the  most  perilous  helm  in  Christendom,  what  a 
marvelous  composite  figure  he  is !  The  whole 
country  is  summed  up  in  him :  the  rude  Western 
strength,  tempered  with  shrewdness  and  a  broad 
and  humane  wit ;  the  Eastern  conservatism,  regard 
ful  of  law  and  devoted  to  fixed  standards  of  duty. 
He  even  understood  the  South,  as  no  other  Northern 
man  of  his  generation  did.  He  respected,  because 
he  comprehended,  though  he  could  not  hold,  its 
view  of  the  Constitution  ;  he  appreciated  the  in 
exorable  compulsions  of  its  past  in  respect  of 
slavery ;  he  would  have  secured  it  once  more,  and 
speedily  if  possible,  in  its  right  to  self-government, 
when  the  fight  was  fought  out.  To  the  Eastern 
politicians  he  seemed  like  an  accident ;  but  to  his 
tory  he  must  seem  like  a  providence. 

Grant  was  Lincoln's  suitable  instrument,  a  great 
American  general,  the  appropriate  product  of  West 
Point.  A  Western  man,  he  had  no  thought  of 
commonwealths  politically  separate,  and  was  in 
stinctively  for  the  Union ;  a  man  of  the  common 
people,  he  deemed  himself  always  an  instrument, 
never  a  master,  and  did  his  work,  though  ruth 
lessly,  without  malice  ;  a  sturdy,  hard-willed,  taci 
turn  man,  a  sort  of  Lincoln  the  Silent  in  thought 
and  spirit.  He  does  not  appeal  to  the  imagination 
very  deeply ;  there  is  a  sort  of  common  greatness 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.      209 

about  him,  great  gifts  combined  singularly  with  a 
great  mediocrity ;  but  such  peculiarities  seem  to 
make  him  all  the  more  American,  —  national  in 
spirit,  thoroughgoing  in  method,  masterful  in 
purpose. 

And  yet  it  is  no  contradiction  to  say  that  Kobert 
E.  Lee  also  was  a  great  American.  He  fought  on 
the  opposite  side,  but  he  fought  in  the  same  spirit, 
and  for  a  principle  which  is  in  a  sense  scarcely  less 
American  than  the  principle  of  Union.  He  repre 
sented  the  idea  of  the  inherent  —  the  essential  — 
separateness  of  self-government.  This  was  not 
the  principle  of  secession  :  that  principle  involved 
the  separate  right  of  the  several  self-governing 
units  of  the  federal  system  to  judge  of  national 
questions  independently,  and  as  a  check  upon  the 
federal  government,  —  to  adjudge  the  very  objects 
of  the  Union.  Lee  did  not  believe  in  secession, 
but  he  did  believe  in  the  local  rootage  of  all  gov 
ernment.  This  is  at  the  bottom,  no  doubt,  an 
English  idea  ;  but  it  has  had  a  characteristic  Amer 
ican  development.  It  is  the  reverse  side  of  the 
shield  which  bears  upon  its  obverse  the  devices  of 
the  Union,  a  side  too  much  overlooked  and  ob 
scured  since  the  war.  It  conceives  the  individual 
State  a  community  united  by  the  most  intimate 
associations,  the  first  home  and  foster-mother  of 


210     A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

every  man  born  into  the  citizenship  of  the  nation. 
Lee  considered  himself  a  member  of  one  of  these 
great  families  ;  he  could  not  conceive  of  the  nation 
apart  from  the  State :  above  all,  he  could  not  live 
in  the  nation  divorced  from  his  neighbors.  His 
own  community  should  decide  his  political  destiny 
and  duty. 

This  was  also  the  spirit  of  Patrick  Henry  and  of 
Sam  Houston,  —  men  much  alike  in  the  cardinal 
principle  of  their  natures.  Patrick  Henry  resisted 
the  formation  of  the  Union  only  because  he  feared 
to  disturb  the  local  rootage  of  self-government,  to  dis 
perse  power  so  widely  that  neighbors  could  not  con 
trol  it.  It  was  not  a  disloyal  or  a  separatist  spirit, 
but  only  a  jealous  spirit  of  liberty.  Sam  Houston, 
too,  deemed  the  character  a  community  should  give 
itself  so  great  a  matter  that  the  community,  once 
made,  ought  itself  to  judge  of  the  national  associa 
tions  most  conducive  to  its  liberty  and  progress. 
Without  liberty  of  this  intensive  character  there 
could  have  been  no  vital  national  liberty ;  and  Sam 
Houston,  Patrick  Henry,  and  Robert  E.  Lee  are 
none  the  less  great  Americans  because  they  repre 
sented  only  one  cardinal  principle  of  the  national 
life.  Self-government  has  its  intrinsic  antinomies 
as  well  as  its  harmonies. 

Among  men  of  letters  Lowell  is  doubtless  most 


A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS.     211 

typically  American,  though  Curtis  must  find  an 
eligible  place  in  the  list.  Lowell  was  self-con 
scious,  though  the  truest  greatness  is  not ;  he  was 
a  trifle  too  "  smart,"  besides,  and  there  is  no 
"  smartness "  in  great  literature.  But  both  the 
self-consciousness  and  the  smartness  must  be  ad 
mitted  to  be  American ;  and  Lowell  was  so  versa 
tile,  so  urbane,  of  so  large  a  spirit,  and  so  admirable 
in  the  scope  of  his  sympathies,  that  he  must  cer 
tainly  go  on  the  calendar. 

There  need  be  no  fear  that  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
stop  with  Lowell  in  literature,  or  with  any  of  the 
men  who  have  been  named  in  the  field  of  achieve 
ment.  We  shall  not  in  the  future  have  to  take 
one  type  of  Americanism  at  a  time.  The  frontier 
is  gone  :  it  has  reached  the  Pacific.  The  country 
grows  rapidly  homogeneous.  With  the  same  pace 
it  grows  various,  and  multiform  in  all  its  life. 
The  man  of  the  simple  or  local  type  cannot  any 
longer  deal  in  the  great  manner  with  any  national 
problem.  The  great  men  of  our  future  must  be  of 
the  composite  type  of  greatness  :  sound-hearted, 
hopeful,  confident  of  the  validity  of  liberty,  tena 
cious  of  the  deeper  principles  of  American  institu 
tions,  but  with  the  old  rashness  schooled  and 
sobered,  and  instinct  tempered  by  instruction. 
They  must  be  wise  with  an  adult,  not  with  an 


212      A   CALENDAR   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS. 

adolescent  wisdom.  Some  day  we  shall  be  of  one 
mind,  our  ideals  fixed,  our  purposes  harmonized, 
our  nationality  complete  and  consentaneous :  then 
will  come  our  great  literature  and  our  greatest 
men. 


VIII. 

THE    COURSE   OF   AMERICAN   HISTORY.1 

IN  the  field  of  history,  learning  should  be  deemed 
to  stand  among  the  people  and  in  the  midst  of  life. 
Its  function  there  is  not  one  of  pride  merely :  to 
make  complaisant  record  of  deeds  honorably  done 
and  plans  nobly  executed  in  the  past.  It  has  also  a 
function  of  guidance :  to  build  high  places  whereon 
to  plant  the  clear  and  flaming  lights  of  experience, 
that  they  may  shine  alike  upon  the  roads  already 
traveled  and  upon  the  paths  not  yet  attempted. 
The  historian  is  also  a  sort  of  prophet.  Our 
memories  direct  us.  They  give  us  knowledge  of 
our  jsharacter,  alike  in  its  strength  and  in  its  weak- 
ness:  and  it  is  so  we  get  our  standards  for  endeavor, 
—  our  warnings  and  our  gleams  of  hope.  It  is 
thus  we  learn  what  manner  of  nation  WP  a.r^  pfT 
and  divine  what  manner  of  people  we  should  be. 

And  this  is  not  in  national  records  merely. 
Local  history  is  the  ultimate  substance  of  national 
history.  There  could  be  no  epics  were  pastorals 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  New  Jersey  Historical  Society. 


214      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

not  also  true,  —  no  patriotism,  were  there  no  homes, 
no  neighbors,  no  quiet  round  of  civic  duty ;  and  I, 
for  my  part,  do  not  wonder  that  scholarly  men 
have  been  found  not  a  few  who,  though  they  might 
have  shone  upon  a  larger  field,  where  all  eyes 
would  have  seen  them  win  their  fame,  yet  chose 
to  pore  all  their  lives  long  upon  the  blurred  and 
scattered  records  of  a  country-side,  where  there  was 
nothing  but  an  old  church  or  an  ancient  village. 
The  history  of  a  nation  is  only  the  history  of  its 
villages  written  large.  I  only  marvel  that  these 
local  historians  have  not  seen  more  in  the  stories 
they  have  sought  to  tell.  Surely  here,  in  these  old 
hamlets  that  antedate  the  cities,  in  these  little 
communities  that  stand  apart  and  yet  give  their 
young  life  to  the  nation,  is  to  be  found  the  very 
authentic  stuff  of  romance  for  the  mere  looking. 
There  is  love  and  courtship  and  eager  life  and 
high  devotion  up  and  down  all  the  lines  of  every 
genealogy.  What  strength,  too,  and  bold  endeavor 
in  the  cutting  down  of  forests  to  make  the  clear 
ings  ;  what  breath  of  hope  and  discovery  in  scaling 
for  the  first  time  the  nearest  mountains ;  what 
longings  ended  or  begun  upon  the  coming  in  of 
ships  into  the  harbor ;  what  pride  of  earth  in  the 
rivalries  of  the  village ;  what  thoughts  of  heaven 
in  the  quiet  of  the  rural  church !  What  forces  of 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.     215 

slow  and  steadfast  endeavor  there  were  in  the 
building  of  a  great  city  upon  the  foundations  of  a 
hamlet :  and  how  the  plot  broadens  and  thickens 
and  grows  dramatic  as  communities  widen  into 
states!  Here,  surely,  sunk  deep  in  the  very  fibre 
of  the  stuff,  are  the  colors  of  the  great  story  of 
men,  —  the  lively  touches  of  reality  and  the  strik 
ing  images  of  life. 

It  must  be  admitted,  I  know,  that  local  history 
can  be  made  deadly  dull  in  the  telling.  The  men 
who  reconstruct  it  seem  usually  to  build  with  kiln- 
dried  stuff,  —  as  if  with  a  purpose  it  should  last. 
But  that  is  not  the  fault  of  the  subject.  National 
history  may  be  written  almost  as  ill,  if  due  pains 
be  taken  to  dry  it  out.  It  is  a  trifle  more  difficult : 
because  merely  to  speak  of  national  affairs  is  to 
give  hint  of  great  forces  and  of  movements  blown 
upon  by  all  the  airs  of  the  wide  continent.  The 
mere  largeness  of  the  scale  lends  to  the  narrative 
a  certain  dignity  and  spirit.  But  some  men  will 
manage  to  be  dull  though  they  should  speak  of 
creation.  In  writing  of  local  history  the  thing 
is  fatally  easy.  For  there  is  some  neighborhood 
history  that  lacks  any  large  significance,  which  is 
without  horizon  or  outlook.  There  are  details  in 
the  history  of  every  community  which  it  concerns 
no  man  to  know  again  when  once  they  are  past 


216      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

and  decently  buried  in  the  records :  and  these  are 
the  very  details,  no  doubt,  which  it  is  easiest  to 
find  upon  a  casual  search.  It  is  easier  to  make 
out  a  list  of  county  clerks  than  to  extract  the  social 
history  of  the  county  from  the  records  they  have 
kept,  —  though  it  is  not  so  important :  and  it  is 
easier  to  make  a  catalogue  of  anything  than  to  say 
what  of  life  and  purpose  the  catalogue  stands  for. 
This  is  called  collecting  facts  "  for  the  sake  of  the 
facts  themselves ; "  but  if  I  wished  to  do  aught  for 
the  sake  of  the  facts  themselves  I  think  I  should 
serve  them  better  by  giving  their  true  biographies 
than  by  merely  displaying  their  faces. 

The  right  and  vital  sort  of  local  history  is  the 
sort  which  may  be  written  with  lifted  eyes,  —  the 
sort  which  has  an  horizon  and  an  outlook  upon 
the  world.  Sometimes  it  may  happen,  indeed, 
that  the  annals  of  a  neighborhood  disclose  some 
singular  adventure  which  had  its  beginning  and  its 
ending  there :  some  unwonted  bit  of  fortune  which 
stands  unique  and  lonely  amidst  the  myriad  trans 
actions  of  the  world  of  affairs,  and  deserves  to  be 
told  singly  and  for  its  own  sake.  But  usually  the 
significance  of  local  history  is,  that  it  is  part  of  a 
greater  whole.  A  spot  of  local  history  is  like  an 
inn  upon  a  highway :  it  is  a  stage  upon  a  far 
journey :  it  is  a  place  the  national  history  has 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.     217 

passed  through.  There  mankind  has  stopped  and 
lodged  by  the  way.  Local  history  is  thus  less  than 
national  history  only  as  the  part  is  less  than  the 
whole.  The  whole  could  not  dispense  with  the 
part,  would  not  exist  without  it,  could  not  be 
understood  unless  the  part  also  were  understood. 
Local  history  is  subordinate  to  national  only  in  the 
sense  in  which  each  leaf  of  a  book  is  subordinate 
to  the  volume  itself.  Upon  no  single  page  will  the 
whole  theme  of  the  book  be  found  ;  but  each  page 
holds  a  part  of  the  theme.  Even  were  the  history 
of  each  locality  exactly  like  the  history  of  every 
other  (which  it  cannot  be),  it  would  deserve  to  be 
written,  —  if  only  to  corroborate  the  history  of  the 
rest,  and  verify  it  as  an  authentic  part  of  the 
record  of  the  race  and  nation.  The  common  ele 
ments  of  a  nation's  life  are  the  great  elements  of 
its  life,  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  fabric.  They 
cannot  be  too  much  or  too  substantially  verified  and 
explicated.  It  is  so  that  history  is  made  solid 
and  fit  for  use  and  wear. 

Our  national  history,  of  course,  has  its  own  great  cfy  \, 
and  spreading  pattern,  which  can  be  seen  in  its 
full  form  and  completeness  only  when  the  stuff  of 
our  national  life  is  laid  before  us  in  broad  surfaces 
and  upon  an  ample  scale.  But  the  detail  of  the 
pattern,  the  individual  threads  of  the  great  fabric, 


218      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

are  to  be  found  only  in  local  history.  There  is  all 
the  intricate  weaving,  all  the  delicate  shading,  all 
the  nice  refinement  of  the  pattern,  —  gold  thread 
mixed  with  fustian,  fine  thread  laid  upon  coarse, 
shade  combined  with  shade.  Assuredly  it  is  this 
that  gives  to  local  history  its  life  and  importance. 
The  idea,  moreover,  furnishes  a  nice  criterion  of 
interest.  The  life  of  some  localities  is,  obviously, 
more  completely  and  intimately  a  part  of  the 
national  pattern  than  the  life  of  other  localities, 
which  are  more  separate  and,  as  it  were,  put  upon 
the  border  of  the  fabric.  To  come  at  once  and 
very  candidly  to  examples,  the  local  history  of  the 
Middle  States,  —  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and 
Pennsylvania,  —  is  much  more  structurally  a  part 
of  the  characteristic  life  of  the  nation  as  a  whole 
than  is  the  history  of  the  New  England  communities 
or  of  the  several  States  and  regions  of  the  South. 
I  know  that  such  a  heresy  will  sound  very  rank  in 
the  ears  of  some:  for  I  am  speaking  against  ac 
cepted  doctrine.  But  acceptance,  be  it  never  so 
general,  does  not  make  a  doctrine  true. 

Our  national  history  has  been  written  for  the 
most  part  by  New  England  men.  All  honor  to 
them  !  Their  scholarship  and  their  characters  alike 
have  given  them  an  honorable  enrollment  amongst 
the  great  names  of  our  literary  history;  and  no 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      219 

just  man  would  say  aught  to  detract,  were  it  never 
so  little,  from  their  well-earned  fame.  They  have 
written  our  history,  nevertheless,  from  but  a  single 
point  of  view.  From  where  they  sit,  the  whpja.of 
the  great  development  looksTTke  an  Expansion  of 

^"~  »  ^^      *  -£_.—* 

New  EnglancL~t)ther  elements  but  play  along  the 
sides"  of  the  great  process  by  which  the  Puritan  has 
worked  out  the  development  of  nation  and  polity. 
It  is  he  who  has  gone  out  and  possessed  the  land : 
the  man  of  destiny,  the  type  and  impersonation  of 
a  chosen  people.  To  the  Southern  writer,  too,  the 
story  looks  much  the  same,  if  it  be  but  followed  to 
its  culmination,  —  to  its  final  storm  and  stress  and 
tragedy  in  the  great  war.  It  is  the  history  of  the 
Suppression  of  the  South.  Spite  of  all  her  splen 
did  contributions  to  the  steadfast  accomplishment 
of  the  great  task  of  building  the  nation  ;  spite  of 
the  long  leadership  of  her  statesmen  in  the  national 
counsels ;  spite  of  her  joint  achievements  in  the 
conquest  and  occupation  of  the  West,  the  South 
was  at  last  turned  upon  on  every  hand,  rebuked, 
proscribed,  defeated.  The  history  of  the  United 
States,  we  have  learned,  was,  from  the  settlement 
at  Jamestown  to  the  surrender  at  Appomattox,  a 
long-drawn  contest  for  mastery  between  New  Eng 
land  and  the  South,  —  and  the  end  of  the  contest 
we  know.  All  along  the  parallels  of  latitude  ran 


220      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

the  rivalry,  in  those  heroical  days  of  toil  and  ad 
venture  during  which  population  crossed  the  conti- 
'V  nent,  like  an  army  advancing  its  encampments. 
Up  and  down  the  great  river  of  the  continent,  too, 
and  beyond,  up  the  slow  incline  of  the  vast  steppes 
that  lift  themselves  toward  the  crowning  towers  of 
the  Rockies,  —  beyond  that,  again,  in  the  gold- 
fields  and  upon  the  green  plains  of  California,  the 
race  for  ascendency  struggled  on,  —  till  at  length 
there  was  a  final  coming  face  to  face,  and  the  mas 
terful  folk  who  had  come  from  the  loins  of  New 
England  won  their  consummate  victory. 

It  is  a  very  dramatic  form  for  the  story.  One 
almost  wishes  it  were  true.  How  fine  a  unity  it 
would  give  our  epic !  But  perhaps,  after  all,  the 
real  truth  is  more  interesting.  The  life  of  the 
nation  cannot  be  reduced  to  these  so  simple  terms. 
These  two  great  forces,  of  the  North  and  of  the 
South,  unquestionably  existed,  —  were  unquestion 
ably  projected  in  their  operation  out  upon  the 
great  plane  of  the  continent,  there  to  combine  or 
repel,  as  circumstances  might  determine.  But  the 
people  that  went  out  from  the  North  were  not  an 
unmixed  people ;  they  came  from  the  great  Middle 
States  as  well  as  from  New  England.  Their 
transplantation  into  the  West  was  no  more  a 
reproduction  of  New  England  or  New  York  or 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.     221 

Pennsylvania  or  New  Jersey  than  Massachusetts 
was  a  reproduction  of  old  England,  or  New  Nether- 
land  a  reproduction  of  Holland.  The  Southern 
people,  too,  whom  they  met  by  the  western  rivers 
and  upon  the  open  prairies,  were  transformed,  as 
they  themselves  were,  by  the  rough  fortunes  of  the 
frontier.  Amixture  of  peoples,  a  modification  of 
mind  and  habit,  a  new^  round  of  experiment  and 
adjustment  amidst  the  novel  life  of  the  baked  and 
unfflejjjjjain,  and  the  far  valleys  with  the  virgin 
forests  still  thick  upon  them  :  a  new  temper,  a  new 
spirit  of  adventure,  a 


a  new  license  of  lif  e,  —  these  are  the  characteristic 
notes  and  measures  of  the  time  when  the  nation 
spread  itself  at  large  upon  the  continent,  and  was 
transformed  from  a  group  of  colonies  into  a  family 
of  States. 

The  passes  of  these  eastern  mountains  were  the 
arteries  of  the  nation's  life.  The  real  breath  of 
our  growth  and  manhood  came  into  our  nostrils 
when  first,  like  Governor  Spotswood  and  that  gal 
lant  company  of  Virginian  gentlemen  that  rode 
with  him  in  the  far  year  1716,  the  Knights  of  the 
Order  of  the  Golden  Horseshoe,  our  pioneers  stood 
upon  the  ridges  of  the  eastern  hills  and  looked 
down  upon  those  reaches  of  the  continent  where 
lay  the  untrodden  paths  of  the  westward  migration. 


222      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

There,  upon  the  courses  of  the  distant  rivers  that 
gleamed  before  them  in  the  sun,  down  the  farther 
slopes  of  the  hills  beyond,  out  upon  the  broad  fields 
that  lay  upon  the  fertile  banks  of  the  "  Father  of 
Waters,"  up  the  long  tilt  of  the  continent  to  the 
vast  hills  that  looked  out  upon  the  Pacific  —  there 
were  the  regions  in  which,  joining  with  people 
from  every  race  and  clime  under  the  sun,  they 
were  to  make  the  great  compounded  nation  whose 
liberty  and  mighty  works  of  peace  were  to  cause 
all  the  world  Ip  stand  a$  gaze!  Thither  were  to 
come  jTreiuJninen,  Scandinavians,  Celts,  Dutch, 
Slavs,  —  men  of  the  Latin  races  and  of  the  races 
of  the  Orient,  as  well  as  men,  a  great  host,  of  the 
first  stock  of  the  settlements :  English,  Scots,  Scots- 
Irish,  —  like  New  England  men,  but  touched  with 
the  salt  of  humor,  hard,  and  yet  neighborly  too. 
For  this  great  process  of  growth  by  grafting,  of 
modification  no  less  than  of  expansion,  the  colonies, 
—  the  original  thirteen  States,  —  were  only  pre 
liminary  studies  and  first  experiments.  But  the 
experiments  that  most  resembled  the  great  methods 
by  which  we  peopled  the  continent  from  side  to 
side  and  knit  a  single  polity  across  all  its  length 
and  breadth,  were  surely  the  experiments  made 
from  the  very  first  in  the  Middle  States  of  our 
Atlantic  seaboard. 


THE  COUESE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      223 

Here  from  the  first  were  mixture  of  population, 
variety  of  element,  combination  of  type,  as  if  of 
the  nation  itself  in  small.  Here  was  never  a 
simple  body,  a  people  of  but  a  single  blood  and 
extraction,  a  polity  and  a  practice  brought  straight 
from  one  motherland.  The  life  of  these  States  was 
from  the  beginning  like  the  life  of  the  country: 
they  have  always  shown  the  national  pattern.  In 
New  England  and  the  South  it  was  very  different. 
There  some  of  the  great  elements  of  the  national 
life  were  long  in  preparation :  but  separately  and 
with  an  individual  distinction  ;  without  mixture,  — 
for  long  almost  without  movement.  That  the  ele 
ments  thus  separately  prepared  were  of  the  greatest 
importance,  and  run  everywhere  like  chief  threads 
of  the  pattern  through  all  our  subsequent  life,  who 
can  doubt?  They  give  color  and  tone  to  every 
part  of  the  figure.  The  very  fact  that  tliey  are  so 
distinct  and  separately  evident  throughout,  the 
very  emphasis  of  individuality  they  carry  with 
them,  but  proves  their  distinct  origin.  The  other 
elements  of  our  life,  various  though  they  be,  and 
of  the  very  fibre,  giving  toughness  and  consistency 
to  the  fabric,  are  merged  in  its  texture,  united, 
confused,  almost  indistinguishable,  so  thoroughly 
are  they  mixed,  intertwined,  interwoven,  like  the 
essential  strands  of  the  stuff  itself:  but  these  of 


224      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

the  Puritan  and  the  Southerner,  though  they  run 
everywhere  with  the  rest  and  seem  upon  a  superfi- 
4»    cial  view  themselves  the  body  of  the  cloth,  in  fact 
modify  rather  than  make  it. 

What  in  fact  has  been  the  course  of  American 
history?"^  How  is  it  to  be  distinguished  from  Eu 
ropean  history  ?  What  features  has  it  of  its  own, 
which  give  it  its  distinctive  plan  and  movement  ? 
We  have  suffered,  it  is  to  be  feared,  a  very  serious 
limitation  of  view  until  recent  years  by  having  all 
our  history  written  in  the  East.  It  has  smacked 
strongly  of  a  local  flavor.  It  has  concerned  itself 
too  exclusively  with  the  origins  and  Old- World 
derivations  of  our  story.  Our  historians  have 
made  their  march  from  the  sea  with  their  heads 
over  shoulder,  their  gaze  always  backward  upon  the 
landing-places  and  homes  of  the  first  settlers.  In 
spite  of  the  steady  immigration,  with  its  persistent 
tide  of  foreign  blood,  they  have  chosen  to  speak 
often  and  to  think  always  of  our  people  as  sprung 
after  all  from  a  common  stock,  bearing  a  family 
likeness  in  every  branch,  and  following  all  the  while 
old,  familiar,  family  ways.  The  view  is  the  more 
misleading  because  it  is  so  large  a  part  of  the  truth 
without  being  all  of  it.  The  common  British 
stock  did  first  make  the  country,  and  has  always 
set  the  pace.  There  were  common  institutions  up 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      225 

and  down  the  coast ;  and  these  had  formed  and 
hardened  for  a  persistent  growth  before  the  great 
westward  migration  began  which  was  to  re-shape 
and  modify  every  element  of  our  life.  The  national 
government  itself  was  set  up  and  made  strong  by 
success  while  yet  we  lingered  for  the  most  part 
upon  the  eastern  coast  and  feared  a  too  distant 
frontier. 

But,  the  beginnings  once  safely  made,  change 
set  in  apace.  Not  only  so :  there  had  been  slow 
change  from  the  first.  We  have  no  frontier  now, 
we  are  told,  —  except  a  broken  fragment,  it  may 
be,  here  and  there  in  some  barren  corner  of  the 
western  lands,  where  some  inhospitable  mountain 
still  shoulders  us  out,  or  where  men  are  still  lacking 
to  break  the  baked  surface  of  the  plains  and  occupy 
them  in  the  very  teeth  of  hostile  nature.  Bujuat 
first  it  wa^  all  frontier,  —  a  mere  strip  of  settle 
ments  stretched  precariously  upon  the  sea-edge  of 
the  wilds :  an  untouched  continent  in  front  of 
thenij_and  behind  them  an  unfrequented  sea^that 
almost  never  showed  so  much  as  the  momentary 
gleam  of  a  sail.  Every  step  in  the  slow  process  of 
settlement  was  but  a  step  of  the  same  kind  as  the 
first,  an  advance  to  a  new  frontier  like  the  old. 
For  long  we  lacked,  it  is  true,  that  new  breed  of 
frontiersmen  born  in  after  years  beyond  the  moun- 


226      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN   HISTORY. 

tains.  Thoaejirst  frontiersmen  hadjstULa  touch  of 
the  timidity  of  the  Old  World  in  their  blood  :  they 
lacked  the  frontier  heart.  They  were  "  Pilgrims  " 
in  very  fact,  —  exiled,  not  at  home.  Fine  courage 
they  had  :  and  a  steadfastness  in  their  bold  design 
which  it  does  a  faint-hearted  age  good  to  look  back 
upon.  There  was  no  thought  of  drawing  back. 
Steadily,  almost  calmly,  they  extended  their  seats. 
They  built  homes,  and  deemed  it  certain  their  chil 
dren  would  live  there  after  them.  But  they  did  not 
love  the  rough,  uneasy  life  for  its  own  sake.  How 
long  did  they  keep,  if  they  could,  within  sight  of 
the  sea  !  The  wilderness  was  their  refuge  ;  but 
how  long  before  it  became  their  joy  and  hope  ! 
Here  was  their  destiny  cast  ;  but  their  hearts  lin 
gered  and  held  back.  I 


passod_and  the  work  widened  about  them  that  their 
thought  also  changed,  and  a  new  thrill  sped  along 
their  blood.  Their  life  had  been  new  and  strange 
m  their  first  landing  in  the  wilderness.  Their 
houses,  their  food,  their  clothing,  their  neighbor 
hood  dealings  were  all  such  as  only  the  frontier 
brings.  Insensibly  they  were  themselves  changed. 
The  strange  life  became  familiar  ;  their  adjustment 
to  it  was  at  length  unconscious  and  without  effort  ; 
they  bad  no  plans  which  were  not  inseparably  a  part 
and  a  product  of  it.  But,  until  they  had  turned 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      227 

their  backs  once  for  all  upon  the  sea ;  until  they 
saw  their  western  borders  cleared  of  the  French  ; 
until  the  mountain  passes  had  grown  familiar,  and 
the  lands  beyond  the  central  and  constant  theme 
of  their  hope,  the  goal  and  dream  of  their  young 
men,  they  did  not  become  an  American  people. 

When  they  did,  the  great  determining  movement 
of  our  history  began.  The  very  visages  of  the 
people  changed.  That  alert  movement  of  the  eye, 
that  openness  to  every  thought  of  enterprise  or  ad 
venture,  that  nomadic  habit  which  knows  no  fixed 
home  and  has  plans  ready  to  be  carried  any  whither, 
—  all  the  marks  of  the  authentic  type  of  the 
"  American  "  as  we  know  him  came  into  jour  jife. 
The  crack  of  the  whip  and  the  song  of  the  team 
ster,  the  heaving  chorus  of  boatmen  poling  their 
heavy  rafts  upon  the  rivers,  the  laughter  of  the 
camp,  the  sound  of  bodies  of  men  in  the  still  forests, 
became  the  characteristic  notes  in  our  air.  A 
roughened  race,  embrowned  in  the  sun,  hardened 
in  manner  by  a  coarse  life  of  change  and  danger, 
loving  the  rude  woods  and  the  crack  of  the  rifle, 
living  to  begin  something  new  every  day,  striking 
with  the  broad  and  open  hand,  delicate  in  nothing 
but  the  touch  of  the  trigger,  leaving  cities  in  its 
track  as  if  by  accident  rather  than  design,  settling 
again  to  the  steady  ways  of  a  fixed  life  only  when 


228      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

it  must :  such  was  the  American  people  whose 
achievement  it  was  to  be  to  take  possession  of  their 
continent  from  end  to  end  ere  their  national  govern 
ment  was  a  single  century  old.  The  picture  is  a 
very  singular  one  !  Settled  life  and  wild  side  by 
side  :  civilization  frayed  at  the  edges,  —  taken  for 
ward  in  rough  and  ready  fashion,  with  a  song  and 
a  swagger,  —  not  by  statesmen,  but  by  woodsmen 
and  drovers,  with  axes  and  whips  and  rifles  in  their 
hands,  clad  in  buckskin,  like  huntsmen. 

It  has  been  said  that  we  have  here  repeated 
some  of  the  first  processes  of  history ;  that  the 
life  and  methods  of  our  frontiersmen  take  us  back 
to  the  fortunes  and  hopes  of  the  men  who  crossed 
Europe  when  her  forests,  too,  were  still  thick  upon 
her.  But  the  difference  is  really  very  fundamental, 
and  much  more  worthy  of  remark  than  the  like 
ness..  Those  shadowy  masses  of  men  whom  we  see 
moving  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  in  the  far 
away,  questionable  days  when  states  were  forming : 
even  those  stalwart  figures  we  see  so  well  as  they 
emerge  from  the  deep  forests  of  Germany,  to  dis 
place  the  Eoman  in  all  his  western  provinces  and 
set  up  the  states  we  know  and  marvel  upon  at  this 
day,  show  us  men  working  their  new  work  at  their 
own  level.  They  do  not  turn  back  a  long  cycle  of 
years  from  the  old  and  settled  states,  the  ordered 


THE  COUESE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      229 

cities,  the  tilled  fields,  and  the  elaborated  govern 
ments  of  an  ancient  civilization,  to  begin  as  it  were 
once  more  at  the  beginning.  They  carry  alike 
their  homes  and  their  states  with  them  in  the  camp 
and  upon  the  ordered  march  of  the  host.  They 
are  men  of  the  forest,  or  else  men  hardened  always 
to  take  the  sea  in  open  boats.  They  live  no  more 
roughly  in  the  new  lands  than  in  the  old.  The 
world  has  been  frontier  for  them  from  the  first. 
They  may  go  forward  with  their  life  in  these  new 
seats  from  where  they  left  off  in  the  old.  How 
different  the  circumstances  of  our  first  settlement 
and  the  building  of  new  states  on  this  side  the 
sea !  Englishmen,  bred  in  law  and  ordered  govern 
ment  ever  since  the  Norman  lawyers  were  followed 
a  long  five  hundred  years  ago  across  the  narrow 
seas  by  those  masterful  administrators  of  the  strong 
Plantagenet  race,  leave  an  ancient  realm  and  come 
into  a  wilderness  where  states  have  never  been  ; 
leave  a  land  of  art  and  letters,  which  saw  but  yes 
terday  "  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth," 
where  Shakespeare  still  lives  in  the  gracious  leisure 
of  his  closing  days  at  Stratford,  where  cities  teem 
with  trade  and  men  go  bravely  dight  in  cloth  of 
gold,  and  turn  back  six  centuries,  —  nay,  a  thousand 
years  and  more,  —  to  the  first  work  of  building 
states  in  a  wilderness!  They  bring  the  steadied 


230      THE  COUESE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

habits  and  sobered  thoughts  of  an  ancient  realm 
into  the  wild  air  of  an  untouched  continent.  The 
weary  stretches  of  a  vast  sea  lie,  like  a  full  thousand 
years  of  time,  between  them  and  the  life  in  which 
till  now  all  their  thought  was  bred.  Here  they 
stand,  as  it  were,  with  all  their  tools  left  behind, 
centuries  struck  out  of  their  reckoning,  driven  back 
upon  the  long  dormant  instincts  and  forgotten  craft 
V  of  their  race,  not  used  this  long  age.  Look  how 
singular  a  thing :  the  work  of  a  primitive  race,  the 
thought  of  a  civilized  !  Hence  the  strange,  almost 
grotesque  groupings  of  thought  and  affairs  in  that 
first  day  of  our  history.  Subtle  politicians  speak 
the  phrases  and  practice  the  arts  of  intricate  diplo 
macy  from  council  chambers  placed  within  log  huts 
within  a  clearing.  Men  in  ruffs  and  lace  and 
polished  shoe-buckles  thread  the  lonely  glades  of 
primeval  forests.  The  microscopical  distinctions 
of  the  schools,  the  thin  notes  of  a  metaphysical 
theology  are  woven  in  and  out  through  the  laby 
rinths  of  grave  sermons  that  run  hours  long  upon 
the  still  air  of  the  wilderness.  Belief  in  dim  refine 
ments  of  dogma  is  made  the  test  for  man  or  woman 
who  seeks  admission  to  a  company  of  pioneers. 
When  went  there  by  an  age  since  the  great  flood 
when  so  singular  a  thing  was  seen  as  this :  thou 
sands  of  civilized  men  suddenly  rusticated  and 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      231 

bade  do  the  work  of  primitive  peoples,  —  Europe 
frontiered  ! 

Of  course  there  was  a  deep  change  wrought,  if 
not  in  these  men,  at  any  rate  in  their  children ; 
and  every  generation  saw  the  change  deepen.  It 
must  seem  to  every  thoughtful  man  a  notable  thing 
how,  while  the  change  was  wrought,  the  simples 
of  things  complex  were  revealed  in  the  clear  air  of 
the  New  World  :  how  all  accidentals  seemed  to 
fall  away  from  the  structure  of  government,  and 
the  simple  first  principles  were  laid  bare  that  abide 
always ;  how  social  distinctions  were  stripped  off, 
shown  to  be  the  mere  cloaks  and  masks  they  were, 
and  every  man  brought  once  again  to  a  clear  reali 
zation  of  his  actual  relations  to  his  fellows  !  It 
was  as  if  trained  and  sophisticated  men  had  been 
rid  of  a  sudden  of  their  sophistication  and  of  all 
the  theory  of  their  life,  and  left  with  nothing  but 
their  discipline  of  faculty,  a  schooled  and  sobered 
instinct.  And  the  fact  thatjwe  kept  alwjiySjjpr 
close  upon  three  hundred  years,  a  like  ele_ment_in 
our  life,  a  frontier  people  always  in  our  van,  ia^jso 
far,  the  central  and  determining  fact  of  our  national 
history.  "  East  "  and  "  West,"  an  ever-changing 
line,  but  an  unvarying  experience  and  a  constant 
leaven  of  change  working  always  within  the  body 
of  our  folk.  Our  political,  our  economic,  our  social 


232      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

life  has  felt  this  potent  influence  from  the  wild 
border  all  our  history  through.  The  "  West  "  is 
the  great  word  of  our  history.  The  "  Westerner" 
has  been  the  type  and  master  of  our  American  life. 
Now  at  length,  as  I  have  said,  we  have  lost  our 
frontier  :  our  front  lies  almost  unbroken  along  all 
the  great  coast  line  of  the  western  sea.  The  West- 


mA_rhy  pnrrn    fn  COmP)  wi^    pn«g   out   of 

our  life,  as  he  so  long-ago-passed,  out  of  .JJhaJifejof 
the  Old  World.  Then  a  new  epoch  will  open  _for 
us^^Perhap^  it.  has  -fipened^  already.  Slowlyjwe 
shall  grow  old,  compacjtLQur  people,  study  the  deli 
cate  adjustments  of  an  intricate  society,  .and  ponder 
the  niceties,  as  we  have  hitherto  pondered  JbheJ-mlks 
and  structural  framework,  of  government.  Have 
we  not,  indeed^alrfiady_come  to  these  things  ?  But 
the  past  we  know.  We  can  "  see  it  steady  and 
see  it  whole  ;  "  and  its  central  movement  and  mo 
tive  are  gross  and  obvious  to  the  eye. 

Till  the  first  century  of  the  Constitution  is 
rounded  out  we  stand  all  the  while  in  the  presence 
of  that  stupendous  westward  movement  which  has 
filled  the  continent  :  so  vast,  so  various,  at  times 
so  tragical,  so  swept  by  passion.  Through  all  the 
long  time  there  has  been  a  line  of  rude  settlements 
along  our  front  wherein  the  same  tests  of  power 
and  of  institutions  were  still  being  made  that  were 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      233 

made  first  upon  the  sloping  banks  of  the  rivers  of 
old  Virginia  and  within  the  long  sweep  of  the  Bay 
of  Massachusetts.  The  new  life  of  the  West  has 
reacted  all  the  while  —  who  shall  say  how  power 
fully  ?  —  upon  the  older  life  of  the  East  ;  and  yet 
the  East  has  moulded  the  West  as  if  she  sent  for 
ward  to  it  through  every  decade  of  the  long  process 
the  chosen  impulses  and  suggestions  of  history. 
The  West  has  taken  strength,  thought,  training, 
selected  aptitudes  out  of  the  old  treasures  of  the 
East,  —  as  if  out  of  a  new  Orient  ;  while  the  East 
has  itself  been  kept  fresh,  vital,  alert,  originative 
by  the_West,  her  blood  quickened  all  t 


youthjhrough  every  age  renewed.  Who  can  say  in 
a  word,  in  a  sentence,  in  a  volume,  what  destinies 
have  been  variously  wrought,  with  what  new  exam 
ples  of  growth  and  energy,  while,  upon  this  unex 
ampled  scale,  community  has  passed  beyond  com 
munity  across  the  vast  reaches  of  this  great  con 
tinent  ! 

The  great  process  is  the  more  significant  because 
it  has  been  distinctively  a  national  process.  Until 
the  Union  was  formed  and  we  had  consciously  set 
out  upon  a  separate  national  career,  we  moved  but 
timidly  across  the  nearer  hills.  Our  most  remote 
settlements  lay  upon  the  rivers  and  in  the  open 
glades  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky.  It  was  in  the 


234      THE  COUESE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

years  that  immediately  succeedejL-the^war  of  1812 
that  the  movement  into  the  West  began  to  be  a 
mighty  migration.  Till  then  our  eyes  had  been 
more  often  in  the  East  than  in  the  West.  Not 
only  were  foreign  questions  to  be  settled  and  our 
standing  among  the  nations  to  be  made  good,  but 
we  still  remained  acutely  conscious  and  deliberately 
conservative  of  our  Old-World  connections.  For 
all  we  were  so  new  a  people  and  lived  so  simple  and 
separate  a  life,  we  had  still  the  sobriety  and  the 
circumspect  fashions  of  action  that  belong  to  an  old 
society.  We  were,  in  government  and  manners, 
but  a  disconnected  part  of  the  "world  beyond  the 
seas.  Its  thought  and  habit  still  set  us  our  stan 
dards  of  speech  and  action.  And  this,  not  because 
of  imitation,  but  because  of  actual  and  long  abiding 
political  and  social  connection  with  the  mother 
country.  Our  statesmen,  —  strike  but  the  names 
of  Samuel  Adams  and  Patrick  Henry  from  the  list, 
together  with  all  like  untutored  spirits,  who  stood 
for  the  new,  unreverencing  ardor  of  a  young  demo 
cracy,  —  our  statesmen  were  such  men  as  might 
have  taken  their  places  in  the  House  of  Commons 
or  in  the  Cabinet  at  home  as  naturally  and  with  as 
easy  an  adjustment  to  their  place  and  task  as  in 
the  Continental  Congress  or  in  the  immortal  Con 
stitutional  Convention.  Think  of  the  stately  ways 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      235 

and  the  grand  air  and  the  authoritative  social 
understandings  of  the  generation  that  set  the  new 
government  afoot,  —  the  generation  of  Washington 
and  John  Adams.  Think,  too,  of  the  conservative 
tradition  that  guided  all  the  early  history  of  that 
government :  that  early  line  of  gentlemen  Presi 
dents  :  that  steady  "  cabinet  succession  to  the  Pres 
idency  "  which  came  at  length  to  seem  almost  like 
an  oligarchy  to  the  impatient  men  who  were  shut 
out  from  it.  The  line  ended,  with  a  sort  of  chill, 
in  stiff  John  Quincy  Adams,  too  cold  a  man  to  be 
a  people's  prince  after  the  old  order  of  Presidents ; 
and  the  year  1829,  which  saw  Jackson  come  in, 
saw  the  old  order  go  out. 

The  date  is  significant.  Since_the  war  of  1812, 
undertaken  as  if  to  set  us  free  to  move  westward, 
seven  States  had  been  admitted  to  the  Union :  and 
the  whole  number  of  States  was  advanced  to 
twenty-four.  Eleven  new  States  had  come  into 
partnership  with  the  old  thirteen.  The  voice  of 
the  West  rang  through  all  our  counsels  ;  and,  in 
Jackson,  the  new  partners  took  possession  of  the 
Government.  It  is  worth  while  to  remember  how 
men  stood  amazed  at  the  change :  how  startled, 
chagrined,  dismayed  the  conservative  States  of  the 
East  were  at  the  revolution  they  saw  effected,  the 
riot  of  change  they  saw  set  in  ;  and  no  man  who 


236      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

has  once  read  the  singular  story  can  forget  how 
the  eight  years  Jackson  reigned  saw  the  Govern 
ment,  and  politics  themselves,  transformed.  For 
long,  —  the  story  being  written  in  the  regions 
where  the  shock  and  surprise  of  the  change  was 
greatest,  —  the  period  of  this  momentous  revolu 
tion  was  spoken  of  amongst  us  as  a  period  of 
degeneration,  the  birth-time  of  a  deep  and  perma 
nent  demoralization  in  our  politics.  But  we  see  it 
differently  now.  Whether  we  have  any  taste  or 
stomach  for  that  rough  age  or  not,  however  much 
we  may  wish  that  the  old  order  might  have  stood, 
the  generation  of  Madison  and  Adams  have  been 
prolonged,  and  the  good  tradition  of  the  early  days 
handed  on  unbroken  and  unsullied,  we  now  know 
uderwent  in__that  day.  of 


change_was  not  degeneration,  great  and_perilous_as 
were  the  errors  of  the  time,  but^regeneration. 
The  old  order  was  changed,  once_aii£Lfnr  a,]1.  __  A 
new  nation  stepped,  with  a  touch  of  swagger,  upon 
the  stage,  —  a  nation  which  had.  broken  alike  with 
theTraditions  and  with  the  wisely  wrought  exper 
ience  of  the  Old  World,  and_which,  with  all  the 
haste  and  rashness  of  youth,  was  minded  to  work 
outji  separate  policyand_jdfiS$inj_of  its  own.  It 
was  a  day  of  hazards,  but  there  was  nothing  sinister 
at  the  heart  of  the  new  plan.  It  was  a  wasteful 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.     237 

experiment,  to  fling  out,  without  wise  guides,  upon 
untried  ways ;  but  an  abounding  continent  afforded 
enough  and  to  spare  even  for  the  wasteful.  It  was 
sure  to  be  so  with  a  nation  that  came  out  of  the 
secluded  vales  of  a  virgin  continent.  It  was  the 
bold  frontier  voice  of  the  West  sounding  in  affairs. 
The  timid  shivered,  but  the  robust  waxed  strong 
and  rejoiced,  in  the  tonic  air  of  the  new  day. 

It  was  then  we  swung  out  into  the  main  paths 
of  our  history.  The  new  voices  that  called  us  were 
first  silvery,  like  the  voice  of  Henry  Clay,  and 
spoke  old  familiar  words  of  eloquence.  The  first 
spokesmen  of  the  West  even  tried  to  con  the  clas 
sics,  and  spoke  incongruously  in  the  phrases  of 
politics  long  dead  and  gone  to  dust,  as  Benton  did. 
But  presently  the  tone  changed,  and  it  was  the 
truculent  and  masterful  accents  of  the  real  fron 
tiersman  that  rang  dominant  above  the  rest,  harsh, 
impatient,  and  with  an  evident  dash  of  temper. 
The  East  slowly  accustomed  itself  to  the  change  ; 
caught  the  movement,  though  it  grumbled  and 
even  trembled  at  the  pace ;  and  managed  most  of 
the  time  to  keep  in  the  running.  But  it  was 
always  henceforth  to  be  the  West  that  set  the 
pacer  There_Js__no  mistaking  the  questions 
have  ruled  our  spirits  as  a,  najJo^n_jlnrTnP^J;hg 
sent  century.  The  public  land  question,  the  tariff 


238      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

question,  and  the  question  of  slavery,  —  these  dom- 
v/  '  inate  from  first  to  last.  It  was  the  West  that 
made  each  one  of  these  the  question  that  it  was. 
Without  the  free  lands  to  which  every  man  who 
chose  might  go,  there  would  not  have  been  that 
easy  prosperity  of  life  and  that  high  standard  of 
abundance  which  seemed  to  render  it  necessary 
that,  if  we  were  to  have  manufactures  and  a  diver 
sified  industry  at  all,  we  should  foster  new  under 
takings  by  a  system  of  protection  which  would 
make  the  profits  of  the  factory  as  certain  and  as 
abundant  as  the  profits  of  the  farm.  It  was  the 
constant  movement  of  the  population,  the  constant 
march  of  wagon  trains  into  the  West,  that  made  it 
so  cardinal  a  matter  of  policy  whether  the  great 
national  domain  should  be  free  land  or  not :  and 
that  was  the  land  question.  It  was  the  settlement 
of  the  West  that  transformed  slavery  from  an 
accepted  institution  into  passionate  matter  of  con 
troversy. 

Slavery  within  the  States  of  the  Union  stood 
sufficiently  protected  by  every  solemn  sanction  the 
Constitution  could  afford.  No  man  could  touch  it 
there,  think,  or  hope,  or  purpose  what  he  might. 
But  where  new  States  were  to  be  made  it  was  not 
so.  There  at  every  step  choice  must  be  made: 
slavery  or  no  slavery  ?  —  a  new  choice  for  every 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      239 

new  State :  a  fresh  act  of  origination  to  go  with 
every  fresh  act  of  organization.  Had  there  been 
no  Territories,  there  could  have  been  no  slavery 
question,  except  by  revolution  and  contempt  of 
fundamental  law.  But  with  a  continent  to  be  peo 
pled,  the  choice  thrust  itself  insistently  forward  at 
every  step  and  upon  every  hand.  This  was  the 
slavery  question  :  not  what  should  be  done  to  re 
verse  the  past,  but  what  should  be  done  to  redeem 
the  future.  It  was  so  men  of  that  day  saw  it,  - 
and  so  also  must  historians  see  it.  We  must  not 
mistake  the  programme  of  the  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety  for  the  platform  of  the  Republican  party, 
or  forget  that  the  very  war  itself  was  begun  ere 
any  purpose  of  abolition  took  shape  amongst  those 
who  were  statesmen  and  in  authority.  It  was  a 
question,  not  of  freeing  men,  but  of  preserving  a 
Free  Soil.  Kansas  showed  us  what  the  problem 
was,  not  South  Carolina :  and  it  was  the  Supreme 
Court,  not  the  slave-owners,  who  formulated  the 
matter  for  our  thought  and  purpose. 

And  so,  upon  every  hand  and  throughout  every 
national  question,  was  the  commerce  between  East 
and  West  made  up :  that  commerce  and  exchange 
of  ideas,  inclinations,  purposes,  and  principles  which 
has  constituted  the  moving  force  of  our  life  as  a 
nation.  Men  illustrate  the  operation  of  these  sin- 


240      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

gular  forces  better  than  questions  can  :  and  no 
man  illustrates  it  better  than  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"  Great  captains  with  their  guns  and  drums 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour ; 
But  at  last  silence  comes  : 

These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 
The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

It  is  a  poet's  verdict ;  but  it  rings  in  the  authentic 
tone  of  the  seer.  It  must  be  also  the  verdict  of 
history.  He  would  be_a  rash  maq  wfrft  should  say 
he  understood  Abraham  Lincoln.  No  doubt  na 
tures  deep  as  HTsTand  various  almost  to  the  point 
of  self -con  tradictaar»]  C8-11  bp. -sounded  onty  by  the 
judgment  of  menofjLJikfi-flfilti, —  if  any  such  there 
be.  ~~~"Buf "some  things  we  all  may  see  and  judge 
concerning  him.  You  have  in  him  the  type  and 
flower  of  our  growth.  It  is  as  if  Nature  had  made 
a  typical  American,  and  then  had,  added  with  lib 
eral  hand  the  royal  quality  of  genius,  to  show  us 
what  the  type  could  be.  Lincoln  owed  nothing  to 
his  birth,  everything  to  his  growth :  had  no  training 
save  what  he  gave  himself  ;  no^urtureJiiit-jOJil^a 
wild  and  native  strength.  His  life  was  his  school 
ing,  an3_<eyjer^ildav  of  it  gave  to  his  character  a 
new  touch  of  development.  His  manhood  not  only, 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.     241 

but  his  perception  also,  expanded  with  his  life. 
His  eyes,  as  they  looked  more  and  more  abroad, 
beheld  the  national  life,  and  comprehended  it :  and 
the  lad  who  had  been  so  rough-cut  a  provincial 
became,  when  grown  to  manhood,  the  one-leaKferin 
all  the  nation  who  held  the  whole  people  singly  in 
his  heartj  —  held  even  the  Southern  people  there, 
and  would  have  won  them  back.  And  so  wejiave 
in  him  what  we  must  call  the  perfect  deYfilppment- 
of  native  strength,  the  rounding  out  and  nationali 
zation  of  the  provincial.  Andrew  Jackson  was  a 
type,  not  of  "fhlTnation,  but  of  the  West.  For  all 
the  tenderness  there  was  in  the  stormy  heart  of 
the  masterful  man,  and  staunch  and  simple  loyalty 
to  all  who  loved  him,  he  learned  nothing  in  the 
East ;  kept  always  the  flavor  of  the  rough  school  in 
which  he  had  been  bred  ;  was  never  more  than  a 
frontier  soldier  and  gentleman.  Lincoln  differed 
from  Jackson  by  all  the  length  of  his  unmatched 
capacity  to  learn.  Jackson  could  understand  only 
men  of  his  own  kind;  Lincoln  could  understand 
men  of  all  sorts  and  from  every  region  of  theTancl : 
seemed  himself,  indeed,  to  be  all  men  by  turns,  as 
mood  succeeded  mood  in  his  strange  nature.  He 
never~~ceased  to  stand,  in  his  bony  angles,  the 
express  image  of  the  ungainly  frontiersman.  His 
mind  never  lost  the  vein  of  coarseness  that  had 


242      THE  COUESE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

marked  him  grossly  when  a  youth.  And  yet  how 
he  grew  and  strengthened  in  the  real  stuff  of  dig 
nity  and  greatness :  how  nobly  he  could  bear  him 
self  without  the  aid  of  grace !  He  kept  always  the 
shrewd  and  seeing  eye  of  the  woodsman  and  the 
hunter,  and  the  flavor  of  wild  life  never  left  him  : 
and  yet  how  easily  his  view  widened  to  great 
affairs ;  how  surely  he  perceived  the  value  and  the 
significance  of  whatever  touched  him  and  made 
him  neighbor  to  itself  ! 

Lincoln's  marvelous  capacity  to  extend  his  com 
prehension  to  the  measure  of  what  he  had  in  hand 
is  the  one  distinguishing  mark  of  the  man  :  and  to 
study  the  development  of  that  capacity  in  him  is 
little  less  than  to  study,  where  it  is  as  it  were  per 
fectly  registered,  the  national  life  itself.  This  boy 
lived  his  youth  in  Illinois  when  it  was  a  frontier 
State.  The  youth  of  the  State  was  coincident  with 
his  own :  and  man  and  State  kept  equal  pace  in 
their  striding  advance  to  maturity.  The  frontier 
population  was  an  intensely  political  population. 
It  felt  to  the  quick  the  throb  of  the  nation's  life, 
—  for  the  nation's  life  ran  through  it,  going  its 
eager  way  to  the  westward.  The  West  was  not 
separate  from  the  East.  Its  communities  were 
every  day  receiving  fresh  members  from  the  East, 
and  the  fresh  impulse  of  direct  suggestion.  Their 


THE  COUESE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      243 

blood  flowed  to  them  straight  from  the  warmest 
veins  of  the  older  communities.  More  than  that, 
elements  which  were  separated  in  the  East  were 
mingled  in  the  West :  which  displayed  to  the  eye 
as  it  were  a  sort  of  epitome  of  the  most  active  and 
permanent  forces  of  the  national  life.  In  such 
communities  as  these  Lincoln  mixed  daily  from  the 
first  with  men  of  every  sort  and  from  every  quarter 
of  the  country.  With  them  he  discussed  neighbor 
hood  politics,  the  politics  of  the  State,  the  politics 
of  the  nation,  —  and  his  mind  became  traveled  as 
he  talked.  How  plainly  amongst  such  neighbors, 
there  in  Illinois,  must  it  have  become  evident  that 
national  questions  were  centring  more  and  more  in 
the  West  as  the  years  went  by :  coming  as  it  were 
to  meet  them.  Lincoln  went  twice  down  the 
Mississippi,  upon  the  slow  rafts  that  carried  wares 
to  its  mouth,  and  saw  with  his  own  eyes,  so  used 
to  look  directly  and  point-blank  upon  men  and 
affairs,  characteristic  regions  of  the  South.  He 
worked  his  way  slowly  and  sagaciously,  with  that 
larger  sort  of  sagacity  which  so  marked  him  all  his 
life,  into  the  active  business  of  state  politics ;  sat 
twice  in  the  state  legislature,  and  then  for  a  term 
in  Congress,  —  his  sensitive  and  seeing  mind  open 
all  the  while  to  every  turn  of  fortune  and  every 
touch  of  nature  in  the  moving  affairs  he  looked 


244      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

upon.  All  the  while,  too,  he  continued  to  canvass, 
piece  by  piece,  every  item  of  politics,  as  of  old, 
with  his  neighbors,  familiarly  around  the  stove,  or 
upon  the  corners  of  the  street,  or  more  formally 
upon  the  stump ;  and  kept  always  in  direct  contact 
with  the  ordinary  views  of  ordinary  men.  Mean 
while  he  read,  as  nobody  else  around  him  read, 
and  sought  to  gain  a  complete  mastery  over  speech, 
with  the  conscious  purpose  to  prevail  in  its  use; 
derived  zest  from  the  curious  study  of  mathemat 
ical  proof,  and  amusement  as  well  as  strength  from 
the  practice  of  clean  and  naked  statements  of 
truth.  It  was  all  irregularly  done,  but  stren 
uously,  with  the  same  instinct  throughout,  and  with 
a  steady  access  of  facility  and  power.  There  was 
no  sudden  leap  for  this  man,  any  more  than  for 
other  men,  from  crudeness  to  finished  power,  from 
an  understanding  of  the  people  of  Illinois  to  an 
understanding  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
And  thus  he  came  at  last,  with  infinite  pains  and  a 
wonder  of  endurance,  to  his  great  national  task 
with  a  self-trained  capacity  which  no  man  could 
match,  and  made  upon  a  scale  as  liberal  as  the  life 
of  the  people.  You  could  not  then  set  this  athlete 
a  pace  in  learning  or  in  perceiving  that  was  too 
hard  for  him.  He  knew  the  people  and  their  life 
as  no  other  man  did  or  could :  and  now  stands  in 


THE  COURSE   OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      245 

his  place  singular  in  all  the  annals  of  mankind,  the 
"  brave,  sagacious,  foreseeing,  patient  man  "  of  the 
people,  "  new  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first 
American." 

We  have  here  a  national  man  presiding  over 
sectional  men.  Lincoln  understood  the  East  better 
than  the  East  understood  him  or  the  people  from 
whom  he  sprung  :  and  this  is  every  way  a  very 
noteworthy  circumstance.  For  my  part,  I  read  a 
lesson  in  the  singular  career  of  this  great  man.  Is 
it  possible  the  East  remains  sectional  while  the 
West  broadens  to  a  wider  view  ? 

"  Be  strong-backed,  brown-handed,  upright  as  your  pines  ; 
By  the  scale  of  a  hemisphere  shape  your  designs," 

is  an  inspiring  programme  for  the  woodsman  and 
the  pioneer  ;  but  how  are  you  to  be  brown-handed 
in  a  city  office  ?  What  if  you  never  see  the  upright 
pines  ?  How  are  you  to  have  so  big  a  purpose  on 
so  small  a  part  of  the  hemisphere?  As  it  has 
grown  old,  unquestionably,  the  East  has  grown 
sectional.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  the  prairie  in 
its  city  streets,  or  of  the  embrowned  ranchman  and 
farmer  in  its  well-dressed  men.  Its  ports  teem  with 
shipping  from  Europe  and  the  Indies.  Its  news 
papers  run  upon  the  themes  of  an  Old  World.  It 
hears  of  the  great  plains  of  the  continent  as  of  for 
eign  parts,  which  it  may  never  think  to  see  except 


246      THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 
from  a  car  window.     Its  life   is   self-centred  and 

Selfish.       The    West,    sa.vp.    whprp,    spftfii'al    intpT-Psta 

centre  (as  in  those  pockets  of  silver  where  men's 
eyes  catch  as  it  were  an  eager  gleam  from  the  very 
ore  itself)  :  the  West  is  in  less  danger  of  sectiqnal- 
ization.  Who  shall  say  in  that  wide  country  where 
one  region  ends  and  another  begins,  or,  in  that  free 

and_changJBg    Society.    WJfprP   QTTP_jngq«B    anrh.  and 

another  begins? 

This,  surely,  is  the  moral  of  our  history.  The 
East  l»g.q  gp^nf  a,nr|  bp,pr>  sppnt  for  JjipJWpai:  :  has 
givenjforth  Jier-jenexg^her  young  men  and  her  sub 
stance,  for  the  nfiw_regions  that  have  been  a-making 
all  the  century  jhrough.  But  has  she  learned  as 
much  as  she  has  taught,  or  taken  as  much  as  she 
has  given  ?  Look  what  it  is  that  has  now  at  last 
taken  place.  The  westward  march  has  stopped, 
upon  the  final  slopes  of  the  Pacific  ;  and  now  the 
plot  thickens.  Fopuj^tiojas-Jairn  upon  their  old 
paths  ;  JilLm  the  spaces  they  passed  by  neglected 
in  their  first  journey  in  search  of  a  land  of  promise  ; 
settle  tcTaTlff  e  such  as  the  East  knows  as  _well  as 
the  Wftaf.7  —  -Tnaj^jfliioli  fegfjgr]  With  the  change, 
the  "pause,  the  settlement,  our  people  draw  into 
closer  groups,  stand  face  toJEace^-tafaow  each  other 
and  be  known  :  and  the  time  has  comaiop-fe 


to  learn  in  her  turn  ;  to  broaden  her  understanding 


THE  COURSE  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.      247 

of  political  and  economic  conditions  to  the  scale  of 
a  hemisphere,  as  her  own  poet  bade.  Let  us  be 
sure  that  we  get  the  national  temperament ;  send 
our  minds  abroad  upon  the  continent,  become 
neighbors  to  all  the  people  that  live  upon  it,  and 
lovers  of  them  all,  as  Lincoln  was. 

Read  but  your  history  aright,  and  you  shall  not 
find  the  task  too  hard.  Your  own  local  history, 
look  but  deep  enough,  tells  the  tale  you  must  take 
to  heart.  Here  upon  our  own  seaboard,  as  truly  as 
ever  in  the  West,  was  once  a  national  frontier,  with 
an  elder  East  beyond  the  seas.  Here,  too,  various 
peoples  combined,  and  elements  separated  elsewhere 
effected  a  tolerant  and  wholesome  mixture.  Here, 
too,  the  national  stream  flowed  full  and  strong,  bear 
ing  a  thousand  things  upon  its  currents.  Let  us 
resume  and  keep  the  vision  of  that  time ;  know 
ourselves,  our  neighbors,  our  destiny,  with  lifted 
and  open  eyes ;  see  our  history  truly,  in  its  great 
proportions  ;  be  ourselves  liberal  as  the  great  prin 
ciples  we  profess  ;  and  so  be  thejpepple  who  might  / 
have  again  the  heroic^  adventures  and  do  again  the 
heroic  work  of  the  past.  'T  is  thus  we 
our  youth  and  secure  our  a^ 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    •    A 


14  DAY  USE 

STURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

R*neWflS  £layi,be  made  4  days  Pfiod  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


)  LU    MAY  6 1  -  -11  AM 


B  9    1975  Z  8 


;\ 


EEC.  OH,     JW2676 


AU6  2  6  1983 


HEC.CIR.  AiiC25'8i 


MAV  a  8 


«c  r  MAY  i 

— -Rfl rang 


OCT  a  1  201 

MSeneraTL 


LD21A-60w-8,'70 
(N8837slO)476 — A-32 


University  of  California 
Berkeley 


